KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan soldier turned his weapon against foreign and Afghan troops in a southern province, killing one British soldier, in another attack by a member of Afghanistan’s military against its foreign allies, officials said Tuesday.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the shooting, the first insider attack of 2013. Several British soldiers were also reported wounded.
Such insider attacks by Afghan soldiers, police or men wearing their uniforms rose dramatically last year. The attacks come as NATO and Afghan forces are in closer contact as foreign troops hand over security to the Afghans and train them before an almost total withdrawal by the end of 2014.
NATO command spokesman Brig. Gen. Gunter Katz identified the dead soldier in Monday’s shooting as British, but his name was not released.
“Yesterday, a suspected member of the Afghan national army shot and killed a British [NATO] soldier,” Katz told a news conference. He said the shooting occurred at a patrol base in Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand province and that the shooter fired at both Afghan and British troops. He said the shooting is under investigation.
An Afghan Defense Ministry official said the shooter was an enlisted soldier, and six British soldiers were wounded. The official spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said in an e-mail that “an infiltrator” staged the attack and managed to escape from the scene but was then shot and killed after opening fire on a checkpoint. The Taliban have used the term “infiltrator” in the past to refer to members who have enlisted in the military to conduct such an attack. They identified the assailant as Mohammad Qasim Faroq.
In London, the Ministry of Defense said the soldier, who was attached to the 21 Engineer Regiment, was killed by small arms fire at Patrol Base Hazrat.
Several similar attacks have occurred in Helmand, the country’s most violent province, where almost all British forces have been concentrated. Capt. Walter Reid Barrie was shot and killed in Nad Ali district of Helmand Nov. 11, the last British soldier to die before Monday’s killing. Two British soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman in October, and the same month a police officer and militants poisoned their colleagues and shot others, leaving six Afghans dead.
British Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman said Tuesday that in light of the increase in insider attacks, measures have been taken to increase security in Afghanistan — including better vetting and screening of recruits and bolstering counterterrorism efforts.
Meanwhile, Obama administration officials said publicly for the first time Tuesday that the U.S. might leave no American troops in Afghanistan after the end of combat in December 2014, an option that defies the view of Pentagon officials who say thousands of U.S. troops could be needed there to keep a lid on al-Qaida and to strengthen the Afghan army and police.
“The U.S. does not have an inherent objective of ‘X’ number of troops in Afghanistan,” said Ben Rhodes, a White House deputy national security adviser. “We have an objective of making sure there is no safe haven for al-Qaida in Afghanistan and making sure that the Afghan government has a security force that is sufficient to ensure the stability of the Afghan government.”
The U.S. now has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of about 100,000 as recently as 2010.
Administration officials in recent days have said they are considering a range of options for a residual U.S. troop presence after 2014, from as few as 3,000 to as many as 15,000, with the number linked to a specific set of military-related missions.
Asked in a conference call with reporters whether zero was now an option, Rhodes said, “That would be an option we would consider.”
His statement comes just three days before Afghan President Hamid Karzai is to meet President Barack Obama at the White House to discuss ways of framing an enduring partnership beyond 2014.
Information for this article was contributed by Cassandra Vinograd, Amir Shah and Robert Burns of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 01/09/2013