US troop deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000
/|
A US soldier and a civilian contractor have been killed in Afghanistan by an Afghan soldier, bringing the total number of US soldier deaths in the 11-year-old conflict to 2,000. A US official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters news agency on Sunday that an American soldier and a civilian contractor had been killed in the incident in eastern Afghanistan. The attack happened at about 12:30 GMT on Saturday in the Sayd Abad district just outside a joint US-Afghan base in Wardak province, an Afghan defence ministry spokesman said on Sunday.
NATO forces would only say that it was a "suspected insider attack" and that a NATO service member and civilian contractor were killed. Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, quoted witnesses as saying that gunfire erupted after a dispute between International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) soldiers, who were manning the checkpoint, and an Afghan National Army patrol. "[The NATO troops] were searching vehicles [carrying] men, women and children, and an Afghan Army patrol came along the highway [from their own checkpoint]. The Afghan patrol complained that the NATO troops were checking women and children, and it seems as a result of this confrontation a firefight broke out," he said. "It's a particularly grim day for the American forces because that death brings to two thousand the number of troops killed here in Afghanistan in more than ten years." So-called insider attacks are now among the biggest threats to coalition troops. |
