Diana West (April 9, 2011) writes of two more American soldiers being killed this week by a "lone" Afghan "ally." These latest murders took place inside a compound in the northern Afghan province of Faryab where the soldiers were providing security for a meeting between U.S. trainers and Afghan border police.
She says she cannot find more details. Presumably, young soldiers arrived safely with their team at the Afghan border police compound near the Afghan border with Turkmenistan. They probably thought the first hard part of the day was over, that they were behind a secure perimeter and could have a smoke or a chew or a stick of gum and wait until they had to mount up and face the booby-traps and sniper harassment that would follow them home. It was at this point that their killer, an Afghan police officer, moved in on them. Maybe he was even assigned to "partner" with them. He greeted them, offered something to eat, might even have told them a joke, who knows? While they were eating, smoking, laughing, somehow off guard, he shot them dead.
West then wonders whether he shouted "Allahu Akbar," or kept it under his breath, or wait until he had gotten clean away for a big loud, "Allah be praised, I got me two infidels"?
This "incident," she says, brings the total of U.S. troops murdered by our Afghan allies since December by her unofficial and possibly incomplete count to 17. If she adds two Italian troops killed in January by an Afghan soldier firing an M-16 at close range while the Italians were cleaning their guns, and three German troops killed in February by an Afghan soldier firing a submachine gun at close range while the Germans were working on a vehicle, the total is 22 NATO soldiers killed by Afghan security forces in four months.
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