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KABUL, Afghanistan – An Afghan commando has opened fire on members of the US-led coalition in western Afghanistan, killing one and injuring two, officials said.
The shooting at the Shindand base in Herat province has heightened concerns over the resurgence of internal attacks that, at their peak in 2012, have almost derailed NATO's mission in Afghanistan. Afghanistan.
This attack took place just days after a brutal attack by a Taliban infiltrator in the Afghan forces in the southern province of Kandahar, which killed a major Afghan police commander and wounded an American brigadier general.
During the attack on Kandahar, the US commander and NATO commander, General Austin S. Miller, was present, but officials said that he was not injured and that it was clear that he was not the target.
The NATO mission, called Resolute Support, did not reveal the nationality of service members killed and wounded on Monday in a camp at the Shindand base used by Afghan commandos. Afghan and US officials have suggested that soldiers come from the Czech Republic.
"The initial reports indicate that the attack was committed by a member of the Afghan security forces," said the NATO mission in a statement.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack. However, two Afghan officials in the west, expressing anonymity to share sensitive information that they were not allowed to disclose, said the The shooting was the result of an argument and did not necessarily constitute evidence of Taliban infiltration.
Officials said the commando, who had been arrested, was complaining to General Abdul Raziq, the Kandahar police chief killed during the Kandahar attack, which had been revered by the security forces. Officials said the commando may have been irritated by social media propaganda suggesting that the top US commander who escaped the attack without being injured deliberately left General Raziq vulnerable.
These social media conspiracy theories, which have affected Afghan infantrymen, have raised serious concerns among officials, prompting the head of government, Abdullah Abdullah, to criticize them.
The rapid spread of rumors has been a problem for the US-led mission in the past, especially when insider attacks were common, and the spread of social media has only made the problem worse.
"Spreading the rumor that this would have been done by Resolute support would throw water into the factory of the enemy," Abdullah said at a meeting in front of the cameras of the press, referring to the name of the US-led NATO mission. "The assassins of General Raziq spread these rumors."
The attack in Kandahar has only exacerbated the growing concerns of US military officials about the introduction of appropriate safeguards. Concerns have increased at a time when the coalition's mission, comprising about 15,000 Americans, is expected to provide more assistance to Afghan forces battling a resurrected Taliban.
The Czech Republic has supplied approximately 250 soldiers to the NATO mission in Afghanistan. Three Czech soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing near Bagram Air Base in August. A Czech vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb near the same base, injuring three soldiers, one of them seriously, according to an American army officer.
Following an insider attack in Uruzgan province in the south of the country in July, a Pentagon investigation aimed to determine whether the brigade's assistance forces Security, a small mobile consulting mission, had implemented the appropriate security procedures. While troops in the country have added more protection personnel following the attack from Uruzgan and another to Logar, some are still wary of the protocols allowing Afghan troops based on American without any filtering.
Two military officers said senior US officers could allow specific Afghan soldiers to visit some bases without their names being scanned or verified, on an official database of known insurgents and accomplices.
Although these US officers can personally control these Afghans for the purpose of building trust, security personnel are concerned about the growing possibility of an internal attack.
In addition to the physical searches of Afghan troops and the presence of a growing number of American protection units, called "guardian angels," the US military sometimes captures and searches Afghan soldiers' cell phones at the search for links with the Taliban, said another officer. Some Afghan soldiers started carrying emergency phones and hiding them from US advisers.
General Miller, a senior US commander, who is also in charge of NATO forces, was clearly vulnerable to Kandahar, with the gunman just ahead of him at a close distance. What seems to have saved him, is that the shooter's weapon was aimed at General Raziq, who had escaped dozens of assassination attempts.
