Maj. Gen. Harold Greene -- a longtime officer who was leading efforts to train soldiers in Afghanistan -- was killed Tuesday at a military training facility in Kabul.
Pentagon officials went out of their way to say the shooting would not change the relationship between U.S. and Afghan forces.
"I've seen no indication that there's a degradation of trust between coalition members and their Afghan counterparts," Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby told reporters Tuesday.
But the deadly ambush at a premier training facility for Afghan military officers raises questions about the vetting process for Afghan soldiers and also the upcoming handover of security to Afghan forces.
"When something like this happens, in the least it creates a crisis of confidence for Afghans and for us," said Vali Nasr, dean of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
So far the Taliban has acknowledged the general's killing, but hasn't claimed responsibility for it.
The Pentagon isn't commenting on the possibility of Taliban involvement, saying the Afghan military and international forces are in the early stages of an investigation.
Nasr told CNN's "The Situation Room" that the attack raises serious concerns as the United States prepares to withdraw forces from Afghanistan and hand over security to Afghan forces.
"The Taliban have proven today they can infiltrate this force at will," he said. "The discipline we are seeking or that we are claiming is not there, and I think it is very difficult for the administration to say that everything is going according to plan, as if this is just an isolated incident and we can just leave."
But it's still unclear whether the gunman had Taliban ties and whether he slipped through the military's screening process, said Philip Mudd, a CNN counterterrorism analyst and a former CIA official.
"I don't think we should look and make judgments about the vetting process too quickly," he said. "You would think on the surface that maybe he was recruited by the Taliban. That's not necessarily the case."
Witnessing the horrors of war sometimes inspires soldiers to turn against their onetime allies, he said.
"He might have seen something in the last months or years...and sometimes there is an emotional switch that turns on after their recruitment, after their vetting, that leads them to say, 'I want to do something about this. I'm going to kill someone in the U.S. military,'" Mudd said.
'Routine visit' turns deadly
The attack occurred during a routine visit to the Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul to look at improvements made at the school, Kirby said.
The shooter was wearing an Afghan military uniform and is believed to be someone who had served for some time in a unit of the Afghan armed forces, Kirby said.
"A person that we believe was an Afghan soldier opened fire and hit many with his weapon," he said.
In addition to the general's slaying, up to 15 coalition troops were wounded in the shooting rampage, Kirby told reporters.
He said some of them sustained serious, but not life-threatening, injuries.
The Afghan Defense Ministry described the shooter as a "terrorist" and said Afghan soldiers shot him dead.
General helped lead training
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno released a condolence statement confirming Greene's death.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Maj. Gen. Harold J. Greene's family, and the families of our soldiers who were injured today in the tragic events that took place in Afghanistan," Odierno said in the statement, referring to other officers who were hurt.
"These soldiers were professionals, committed to the mission. It is their service and sacrifice that define us as an Army. "
Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, described the general as a very experienced officer who was a leader in the training command in Afghanistan. He was an expert in infrastructure and logistics, Kirby said.
Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed condolences on his official Facebook page Tuesday night.
"We serve, and where we serve we are often at risk," he said. "God bless those wounded and killed in Afghanistan yesterday and their families."
Insider attacks: 'A threat you can't completely eliminate'
This isn't the first time people dressed in Afghan security forces uniforms have attacked coalition forces who have worked to thwart such violence.
"The insider threat is one that we've been focused on for quite some time. ... It is a threat you can't completely eliminate," Kirby told CNN.
But it's a threat that can be mitigated, he said. And officials stress that statistics show that the numbers of such attacks have decreased.
In 2012, so-called "green on blue" insider attacks took the lives of dozens of coalition troops, and the U.S. command in Kabul halted some joint operations with Afghan security forces, CNN has previously reported.
Two attackers wearing Afghan military uniforms killed two U.S. service members in February in Afghanistan, the military publication Stars and Stripes reported.
In October 2013, a man in an Afghan soldier's uniform shot and killed an ISAF member in eastern Afghanistan, CNN reported.
Source: CNN
No comments:
Post a Comment