Afghan officer kills 9 Americans
April 28, 2011 - 0:0
KABUL – An angry Afghan military officer killed eight U.S. troops and an American contracted mercenary on Wednesday after he was allegedly abused by foreign officials in a meeting, the reports said.
The Afghan pilot opened fired on the foreigners after an argument in which the NATO men verbally abused him shouted profanes.According to the Associated Press, the shooting occurred in an operations room of the Afghan Air Corps at Kabul airport.
""Suddenly, in the middle of the meeting, shooting started,"" said Afghan Air Corps spokesman Col. Bahader, who uses only one name. ""After the shooting started, we saw a number of Afghan army officers and soldiers running out of the building. Some were even throwing themselves out of the windows to get away.""
All nine killed were American, according to a senior U.S. defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information has not yet been made public.
Five Afghan soldiers were wounded. At least one Afghan soldier was shot -- in the wrist -- but most of the soldiers suffered broken bones and cuts, Bahader said.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the shooting and offered his condolences to the relatives of the victims. He said those killed were trainers and advisers for the Afghan air force. The president ordered his defense and security officials to investigate the recent incidents to determine why they occurred.
It was the seventh time so far this year that members of the Afghan security forces, or insurgents impersonating them, have killed coalition soldiers or members of the Afghan security forces.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the gunman, who was killed during the shooting, was impersonating an army officer and that others at the facility helped him gain access.
However, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the gunman was an Afghan military pilot of 20 years.
""An argument happened between him and the foreigners and we have to investigate that,"" Azimi said.
An Afghan pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity, identified the gunman was Ahmad Gul, a 50-year-old pilot from Tarakhail district of Kabul province.
Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks on government and military installations across Afghanistan.
_On April 18, an insurgent managed to sneak past security at the heavily fortified Afghan Defense Ministry compound in the capital and killed two Afghan soldiers and an officer.
_Two days before that, an Afghan soldier walked into a meeting of NATO trainers and Afghan troops at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in Laghman province in eastern Afghanistan and detonated a vest of explosives hidden underneath his uniform. The blast, the worst before Wednesday's shooting, killed six American troops, four Afghan soldiers and an interpreter.
_On April, 15, a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up inside the Kandahar police headquarters complex, killing the top law enforcement officer in the restive southern province.
_In northwest Afghanistan, a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform shot and killed two American military personnel on April 4 in Faryab. The gunman was upset over the recent burning the copies of the Holy Quran at a Florida church, according to NATO intelligence officials.
_In February, an Afghan soldier, who felt he had been personally offended by his German partners, shot and killed three German soldiers and wounded six others in the northern province of Baghlan.
_In January, an Afghan solider killed an Italian soldier and wounded another in Badghis province. The two soldiers were cleaning their weapons at a combat outpost when an Afghan soldier approached them with an M16 rifle and asked to use their equipment to clean his gun. The Italians saw that the Afghan soldier's rifle was loaded and asked him to unload it, at which point the Afghan soldier shot the two Italians and escaped from the base.
Photo: An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier walks away from the site of a burning tanker which was transporting fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan on Jalalabad-Kabul highway on April 27, 2011. (Reuters photo)