Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/world/asia/nato-soldier-killed-by-assailant-in-afghan-army-uniform.html
May 11, 2012
NATO Soldier Killed by Assailant in Afghan Army Uniform
By GRAHAM BOWLEY [Afghanistan] [AfPak] [Obama’s “surge” continues] [after “surge” has success around Kandahar, insurgency strikes back?] [last week on anniversary of bin Laden raid, President Obama signed strategic parternship, then left] [quickly back to the war thru 2014?] [followup] [another case of U.S. “ally” Afghanis security forces turning guns on NATO troops!] [use psci 355-455] [May 6 was most recent previous occasion] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — An attacker wearing an Afghan Army uniform opened fire on coalition soldiers in remote eastern Afghanistan on Friday, killing one NATO service member, the coalition said in a statement.
Afghan officials said the shooting took place in Kunar Province on the Pakistan border and that the attacker had escaped. Following NATO policy, the coalition statement did not disclose the nationality of the dead soldier.
NATO said that the killing was under investigation. The episode appeared to be the latest in a recent string of so-called green-on-blue assaults on coalition soldiers by their Afghan partners this year.
Wasiefullah Wasifi, a spokesman for the governor of Kunar Province, said the shooting happened on Friday morning in the Ghaziabad District of the province. Attaullah, the police chief of Ghaziabad, also confirmed the shooting.
The Taliban claimed one of its own fighters was responsible.
The shooting followed an attack on Sunday when a NATO soldier was shot to death by an individual wearing an Afghan Army uniform in Helmand Province in the country’s south. In that shooting, the attacker was killed when coalition soldiers returned fire.
After the attack Sunday, NATO officials in Kabul said on Monday that it was the 14th such attack in Afghanistan so far this year, and the 19th coalition death at the hands of individuals wearing Afghan Army uniforms.
After Friday’s killing, the NATO statement said: “An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against coalition service members in eastern Afghanistan today, killing one service member.”
Ghaziabad, one of several districts in Kunar that had become something of a gathering point for large numbers of fighters crossing the border from Pakistan, was the scene of heavy fighting over the past year.
In October, American and Afghan troops fought intense battles in that region to gain control of a critical corridor and convoy resupply route that had been cut off by insurgents.
Kunar’s mountains and valleys have been the site of some of the most fateful fighting of the war, including a series of deadly encounters in the Korangal Valley, where more than 40 Americans lost their lives during a five-year presence at an outpost there, which was closed in April 2010.
Now in Kunar, as elsewhere across the country, NATO troops have been making an intense effort to weaken insurgents as much as possible before the coalition troops withdraw and hand over combat outposts and forward operating bases to the Afghan Army.
On Sunday, President Hamid Karzai plans to announce the next group of regions where NATO will relinquish security control to the Afghans.
An employee of The New York Times in Kunar Province contribute reporting.