KABUL, Afghanistan — The police sergeant who killed an American contractor in Kabul is a native Iranian who came to Afghanistan and displayed “unstable behavior” but no known links to militants, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
The sergeant, identified as Nargas, shot 49-year-old Joseph Griffin, of Mansfield, Ga., on Monday in the first such shooting by a woman in a string of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies. Nargas walked into a heavily guarded compound in the heart of Kabul, confronted Griffin and gunned him down with a single pistol bullet.
She was quickly arrested.
The U.S.-based security firm DynCorp International said on its website that Griffin was a U.S. military veteran who earlier worked with law enforcement agencies in the United States. In Kabul, he was under contract to the NATO military command to advise the Afghan police force.
Insider killings have eroded the trust between the foreign contingent and the Afghan government.
The ministry spokesman,Sediq Sediqi, told a news conference that Nargas, who uses one name like many in the country, was born in Tehran, where she married an Afghan. She moved to the country 10 years ago after her husband obtained fake documents enabling her to live and work there.
A mother of four in her early 30s, she joined the police five years ago, held various positions and had a clean record, he said. Sediqi produced an Iranian passport that he said was found at her home.
“Her mental condition is not good,” he said, describing her behavior as “unstable.” He said that after she attended a recent training course in Egypt, a “foreign government” - a clear reference to Egypt - informed Afghan authorities that she did not appear to be “normal.”
On Monday, senior Afghan officials said the sergeant waslicensed to carry the weapon into the compound and was well known there. On Tuesday, however, the chief investigator, Gen. Mohammad Zahir, told reporters that she was not authorized to carry weapons into the compound but managed to pass through security checks with a hidden pistol. Zahir said the lapse of security was also being investigated, as well as whether she had connections with foreign or local militant groups.
No militant group has claimed responsibility for the killing.
Zahir said that during interrogation, the sergeant said she had plans to kill either the Kabul governor, the city police chief or Zahir himself, but when she realized that penetrating the last security cordons to reach them would be too difficult, she saw “a foreigner” and turned her weapon on him.
On Monday, NATO said that “some temporary, prudent measures” might be put into place to lessen exposure of NATO personnel to insider attacks, but the training of Afghan police would not be stopped. The NATO command had no additional comment on the case Tuesday.
There have been 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel, compared to 21 in 2011. This surge presents another looming security issue as NATO prepares to pull out almost all of its forces by 2014.
More than 50 Afghan members of the government’s security forces also have died this year in attacks by their own colleagues. The Taliban claims such incidents reflect a growing popular opposition to the foreign military presence and the Kabul government.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 12/26/2012