A member of the Afghan National Army killed a US soldier late last night. From the ISAF press release:
An individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon against coalition service members in southern Afghanistan late yesterday, killing one service member.
The individual who opened fire was killed when Coalition forces returned fire. A joint Afghan and USFOR-A team is investigating the incident.
It is USFOR-A policy is to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities.
Eighteen ISAF soldiers have now been killed by members of the Afghan National Security forces since the beginning of the year. The last such attack that resulted in the death of ISAF personnel took place on March 26. On that day, three ISAF soldiers were killed in two separate incidents.
ISAF will not publish the overall number of attacks by Afghan forces on ISAF troops, including attacks in which a soldier is wounded but not killed, or in which no one is hurt. One such attack took place on April 16; ISAF troops killed an Afghan soldier after he opened fire on their convoy. No ISAF troops were reported to have been killed or wounded in that attack. ISAF told The Long War Journal that the information about the overall number of attacks by Afghan forces on ISAF troops is “classified.” See LWJ report, Afghan security forces kill 3 ISAF troops in south, east for more information on the “green on blue” attacks.
Update:
Reuters reported that it was an Afghan commando who killed a US Special Forces soldier and an Afghan interpreter:
An elite Afghan soldier shot dead an American mentor and his translator at a U.S. base, Afghan officials said on Friday, in the first rogue shooting blamed on the country’s new and closely vetted special forces.
The soldier opened fire at an American military base on Wednesday in Shah Wali Kot district, in volatile Kandahar province, said General Abdul Hamid, the commander of Afghan army forces in the Taliban’s southern heartland.
“The shooting took place after a verbal conflict where the Afghan special forces soldier opened fire and killed an American special forces member and his translator,” Hamid told Reuters.
