Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.S. loses two more to Koran backlash
Afghan soldiers turn against allies
KABUL — Two U. S. servicemen were gunned down by two Afghan soldiers and an accomplice Thursday, the latest of six American servicemen killed by their Afghan partners since the burning of Muslim holy books at a U. S. base last week sent anti- Americanism soaring.
The killings come at a time when international troops have stepped up training and mentoring of Afghan soldiers, police and government workers so the Afghans can take the lead and the foreign forces can go home.
Success of the partnership, the focus of the U. S.- led coalition’s exit strategy, is threatened by a rising number of Afghan police and soldiers — or militants disguised in their uniforms — who are turning their guns on their foreign allies.
The latest victims were killed at a joint U. S.-afghan base in Zhari district of southern Kandahar province by two Afghan soldiers and an Afghan civilian literacy instructor who fired from a sentry tower, according to U. S. and Afghan officials.
NATO forces shot and killed two of the assailants, apparently the soldiers, said Pentagon press secretary George Little.
Four other Americans were wounded in the attack.
The base is close to the village of Sangsar, the birthplace of the Taliban and the hometown of its leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. Masoom Khan, the district chief of police, said the attackers were suspected of having links to the insurgency.
On Saturday, two U.S. military advisers were found dead with shots to the back of the head inside the Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul. Two U.S. servicemen were killed Feb. 23 by an Afghan soldier during an anti-western protest over the Koran burning.
The U.S. apologized for the burning, saying the Islamic texts were mistakenly sent to a garbage burn pit Feb. 20 at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul. Deadly protests raged around the nation for six days, the most visible example of a deep- seated resentment bred by what Afghans view is a general lack of respect for their culture and religion.
Afghan policeman Khalid Khiri turns his head now and spits when he sees a U.S. military convoy roll by.
The 25-year- old policeman says it was fine to fight alongside the Americans. But after the Muslim holy books were burned, he says he detests them.
“If they’re going to burn the Koran, we don’t want them here,” he said this week on a road just south of Kabul. “They will never be forgiven for betraying the holy book.”
Afghans have staged demonstrations in the past over NATO airstrikes that have inadvertently killed civilians; deadly traffic accidents involving U.S. military vehicles; and night raids that Afghans say violate their privacy, disrespect women and lead to the detention of innocents. But desecration of the Muslim holy book struck at the heart of the Afghan people and their religion.
Thousands unleashed their anger in the largest display of anti-americanism so far in a war that has claimed the lives of at least 1,779 U.S. servicemen, according to an Associated Press count. The demonstrations, which have left more than 30 people dead, also were a venue for war-weary Afghans to express their frustration that tens of thousands of international troops and billions of dollars in foreign aid have not brought them peace or major improvements to their daily lives.
“This is the most emotive incident that has happened so far. It’s been really at a peak,” said Martine van Bijlert, codirector of the Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul. “Even people who are really moderate are sort of exasperated,” she said of Afghans’ response to the Koran burning. She said they are saying, “How can you do this? How are we supposed to go on like this?”
Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Afghans generally do not hate Americans and noted that the thousands of people who protested were a fraction of the nearly 30 million people who live in Afghanistan. But he wrote in a recent opinion piece that the violent protests have strengthened the argument of those in the U.S. who want a faster withdrawal of American forces.
At the Pentagon, Little called the latest attack troubling but said the U.S. intends to “stay the course” with its basic strategy for transitioning security responsibility to the Afghans.
A U.N. survey released in late January, before the protests, reported that 68 percent of Afghans surveyed said foreign troops should stay for the time being, compared with about a quarter who said they should leave immediately. The survey by an independent research firm conducted in-person interviews with 7,278 Afghans in October 2011 in all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces, although some randomly chosen districts were inaccessible because of the threat from Taliban insurgents. It quoted a margin of error of 1.6 percentage points.
Some of the four main ethnic factions in Afghanistan want the foreign troops to stay longer than others do. Many Pashtuns, who make up 40 percent of the population and fill the ranks of the Taliban, want international troops to leave immediately. The Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, many of whom were massacred by the Taliban, generally want them to stay as long as violence threatens security.
The recent anti-american riots also have affected other foreigners who work for international aid organizations and have been locked down in secure locations since the protests began. Many Afghans can’t tell the difference between an American or European. They routinely say “the Americans” to describe all foreign forces.
The deaths of the two Americans at the Afghan Interior Ministry on Saturday prompted NATO to withdraw hundreds of military advisers and trainers from government ministries in Kabul immediately. On Thursday, a NATO spokesman, Brig. Gen. Lewis Boone, said some of the advisers were returning to the ministries, but he did not specify which offices were involved.
The clash of cultures has played out on the battlefield where Afghan security forces have increasingly partnered with their foreign counterparts. Since 2007, Afghan security force attacks on coalition troops have resulted in the deaths of more than 75 coalition personnel and the wounding of more than 110 others, according to the Pentagon.
A May 2011 study, commissioned by the U.S. military, says the attacks are no longer isolated and are “provoking a crisis of confidence and trust among Westerners training and working with the Afghan security forces.”
Afghan and U.S. troops almost came to blows in March 2010 on a base in Helmand province in the south after Afghan soldiers sliced off the ears of a puppy the American troops had adopted. The Afghans were treating the animal as a typical Afghan fighting dog that has its ears and tail removed so its canine opponents can’t grab them in battle.
In February 2011, Afghan soldiers abandoned a patrol in Helmand after they argued with U. S. Marines over whether the American troops were getting too close to local women. The Marines were escorting an American female engagement team gathering information from Afghan women. After the Afghan troops stormed off, the Marines angrily said their Afghan counterparts were just lazy and looking for an excuse not to patrol.
The Afghan forces, according to the study, complain that the U.S. troops urinate in public, use excessive profanity, loudly pass gas, insult them and drink or eat in front of them during Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, a time when Muslims fast during the day. They claim U.S. troops use faulty intelligence to raid Afghan homes and humiliate them by publicly searching them in front of Afghan civilians. Information for this article was contributed by Deb Riechmann, Amir Shah, Heidi Vogt, Sebastian Abbot, Robert Burns and Mirwais Khan of The Associated Press; and by Graham Bowley of The
New York Times.