Three British Troops Are Fragged
Armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and an automatic rifle, a rogue Afghan soldier attacked a group of British troops early Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, killing three of the soldiers and wounding four others before escaping.The Afghan soldier was assigned to a patrol base shared by NATO troops and the Afghan National Army in the volatile southern province of Helmand, according to NATO spokespeople and Afghanistan's Defense Ministry.
Helmand is where American troops mounted a large-scale offensive earlier this year to uproot Taliban insurgents from a stronghold in the town of Marjah.
The motive for the attack in the Nahr-e-Sarraj district remained unclear.
U.S. military leaders have stressed the importance of ratcheting up the training of Afghan security forces so that they can gradually take on more responsibility for securing their own country.
The Associated Press reported that Afghan President Hamid Karzai sent a letter of apology to the British government. Karzai's spokesman, Waheed Omar, said Karzai
was upset to hear this. … It's a very regrettable case, and we hope that this is thoroughly investigated.Yeah! Let's get to the bottom of this!
I'm telling you, I am very concerned. I just had this conversation the other day with one of my sons because he is en-route there from Iraq to help train the Afghan army and I warned him on taking his eyes off them.It really drives me shithouse our troops have to trust them with weapons. Consider the frigging source!
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I feel like isn't the first afghani soldier to "go rogue."
ReplyDeleteThey're trying to make this NOT seem like a pattern. Because if it is a pattern... what does that imply about how much our presence is "appreciated" there
one struggle,
--the rev
Reverend Manny is right. Here and here are two previous examples of Afghanistan Army soldiers fragging our troops: just two we have covered in these pages.
ReplyDeleteHow many more of these would constitute a theme or a trend?
ReplyDeleteEight American troops died in attacks in southern Afghanistan, including a car bombing and gunfight outside a police compound in Kandahar, officials said Wednesday as the Taliban push back against a coalition effort to secure the volatile region.
ReplyDeleteA suicide attacker slammed a car bomb into the gate of the headquarters of the elite Afghan National Civil Order Police late Tuesday in Kandahar, a NATO statement said. Minutes later, insurgents opened fire with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Sorry if this gets posted twice, having trouble with comments..
ReplyDeleteAnd we're there why? Oh yeah the wealth of minerals.
Well we are consistent....
It wouldn't hurt to start drug-testing these mother-fuckers, too (this, in that I hear that lot of them are jacked half the time).
ReplyDeleteThe 218th Infantry Brigade of the South Carolina National Guard did a tour in Afghanstan a couple of years ago to help train the Afghan army. Talked with a buddy when he got back and he said they were told early not to trust any of the recruits.
ReplyDeleteSo much hate and determined 'terrorist' styled infiltration. Suicide attackers is what I am thinking, planted in the military easily. And also, from that Wikileaks article where it showed our troops in vicious reaction to journalists / they claimed were insurgents... it's not so much that they made a tragic mistake... it's that they took such pleasure in the killing. How can a people by surrounded by that kind of corrupted military mindset and not be moved to take action against them from within... granted it's only a small number of military that act like this... still, what the fuck are we doing over there? Hate is a drug of it's own. The government and the system of structure in the country is completely corrupt that the people are easily hooked into retaliating against whomever is the 'invading' force. Did anyone see Maddow's reports last week from over there and the corruption of the existing gov and structure... the poverty of the street and the opulance of the corrupt gov / state that focuses on profiting from the invaders? More cause for this kind of retaliation in that .... again, what the fuck are we doing over there.
ReplyDelete(sorry about my french)
Any language is permitted here, especially when Ms Barry is speaking it!
ReplyDeletePatriot, I think I can speak for all of us when I say were pulling for your son.
ReplyDeleteHundreds of Afghanistan contractor deaths go unreported. A Congressional report estimates Afghanistan death rate more than four times greater than for U.S. troops
ReplyDeleteUnlike when a soldier is killed in action and the military promptly issues a press release describing the circumstances of the death, contractor deaths go almost entirely unreported by the Pentagon, and, by extension, the media. As a result, both the level of violence and the number of people being killed as part of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan are being significantly underreported.
Details about how the private security contractors are dying are exceedingly hard to come by, beyond the fact that the majority were killed while guarding convoys.contractors guarding convoys can be particularly vulnerable because they often lack the armored vehicles or helicopters that U.S. troops travel in. The casualties can come from anything from the Taliban, to fights between contractors, to failure to pay local warlords off and an occasional reminder to do that.