KABUL, Afghanistan — In a disastrous day
for the NATO force in Afghanistan, four American troops were gunned down Sunday
by Afghan police, a U.S. airstrike killed eight Afghan women foraging for fuel
on a rural hillside, and military officials disclosed that a Taliban strike on
a southern base had destroyed more than $150 million worth of planes and
equipment — in money terms, by far the costliest single insurgent attack in 11
years of warfare.
The confluence of events underscored some
of the conflict's most damaging trends: an unrelenting tide of
"insider" attacks, in which Afghan forces turn their weapons on
coalition allies; the daily loss of civilian lives to war's ravages; and the
continuing ability of insurgent forces to inflict disproportionate havoc on the
far more powerful Western military.
The lethal encounter between U.S. forces
and Afghan police took place soon after midnight in Zabol province in the
south, military and Afghan officials said. The provincial governor, Mohammad
Ashraf Naseri, said the shooting took place at a joint base in Zabol's Mezan
district.
The NATO force confirmed the deaths without
disclosing the nationality, but U.S. officials said the troops were American.
The killings came less than 24 hours after two British soldiers were gunned
down by an Afghan policeman and brought to 51 the number of Western service
members killed this year by Afghan security forces.
Both Western and Afghan officials
acknowledge insider shootings have become an extremely serious problem — about
15% of all coalition deaths come at the hands of Afghan forces — and they have
taken urgent steps to stop the attacks. Forces on both sides are undergoing
cultural training to try to avoid deadly misunderstandings. NATO troops have
been ordered to keep rounds chambered in their weapons at all times, and armed
Western troops called "guardian angels" have been posted to watch
over others in mess halls, sleeping tents and gyms. Thousands of members of a
locally recruited village militia were ordered rescreened for links with the
insurgency.
How to reduce such attacks is the subject
of considerable debate among U.S. and NATO officials. Moves that slow the
training of Afghans to take over security in their own country could undercut
the goal of a Western military withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
And steps seen as too heavy-handed could be taken by Afghans as an insult in a
culture where perceived slights can swiftly lead to more violence.
The eight women killed in an airstrike in
Laghman province, in eastern Afghanistan, were poor villagers who were
gathering brush for cooking fires, provincial authorities said. In addition to
those killed, seven others were reported injured. Villagers loaded their bodies
into trucks and drove them to the provincial governor's office, parading them
through the streets in protest.
The NATO force acknowledged that between
five and eight civilians were accidentally killed in a strike targeting a group
of insurgents, and expressed regret.
A spokesman for the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization coalition, Air Force Capt. Dan Einert, said the bombardment
followed a "significant engagement" Sunday morning in the remote
Alingar district of Laghman province. He said a unit of NATO's International
Security Assistance Force positively identified a group of about 45 insurgents
with hostile intent and called in the airstrike, which killed a large number of
them.
"Unfortunately, we are aware of
civilian casualties as a result of this strike," he said.
In recent years, NATO and Afghan government
forces have been responsible for a shrinking proportion of civilian deaths,
with nearly all such deaths and injuries blamed on insurgents. But airstrikes
remain the single largest cause of civilian casualties inflicted by
international forces.
Meanwhile, Western officials disclosed
early Sunday that an insurgent raid at Camp Bastion, in Helmand province, had
been far more serious than initially reported. Military officials had already
reported the deaths of two U.S. Marines in the strike that began Friday evening
and continued into the early hours of Saturday. On Sunday, however, they
reported that the insurgents had managed to destroy six sophisticated AV-8B
Harrier jets, together with three refueling stations. Two other Harrier
aircraft were "significantly damaged," as were six soft-skin aircraft
hangars.
Bastion, where Britain's Prince Harry is
deployed as part of an Apache helicopter crew, is considered one of the most
heavily fortified bases in Afghanistan. That a relatively small squad of
insurgents was able to breach the perimeter and inflict such a degree of damage
surprised the U.S. and British command.
In London, a Defense Ministry spokesman,
speaking under the customary request of anonymity, said Sunday that the
prince's deployment would continue. "In light of this event, there aren't
any plans for him to be withdrawn," he said.
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