A suspected “insider” attack at a checkpoint in Afghanistan has brought to 2,000 the number of US soldiers killed in the conflict.
A US soldier and a foreign contractor were killed in the east of the country, apparently by a rogue member of the Afghan security forces.
“Insider” attacks sharply increased this year, prompting the coalition to suspend joint operations this month.
However, such operations resumed in recent days, the Pentagon said.
The nationality of the contractor was not given immediately.
It will be particularly galling for Isaf commanders that the 2,000th American to be killed in Afghanistan, died at the hands of an ally.
It is just over a week since the last “green on blue”, or insider, attack. The international mission’s senior leadership were hopeful that their recent forceful response to the dramatic rise in insider attacks – suspending routine joint patrols – was having an effect.
But as the Wardak attack shows, even if they do not patrol together, Afghan and coalition forces are never far apart. This is the first green-on-blue since the change to joint patrols.
Insider attacks have gained a momentum. Isaf sources say that one is usually followed by another, within 48 hours.
At every base in Afghanistan – whether large or small – international forces are reviewing how they interact, and how close they get, to their Afghan partners.
Reducing these attacks is a priority, not just because of the loss of life, but because they dramatically erode the already weakened support for the war in Britain, the US and other coalition countries.
The American death toll goes back to the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
‘Checkpoint row’
The two new deaths occurred on Saturday in Wardak province, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force said.
Afghan officials say the incident took place at a checkpoint near an Afghan National Army base in the district of Sayedabad.
The police chief of Wardak province told the BBC that a number of Afghan soldiers had also been killed.
Shahidullah Shahid, a provincial government spokesman, told the Associated Press news agency an Afghan soldier had turned his gun on Americans and started shooting.
“Initial reports indicate that a misunderstanding happened between Afghan army soldiers and American soldiers,” he said.
Quoting local people, a correspondent for the Daily Telegraph said on Twitter that they had argued over a house search.
Military officials from both sides have launched a joint investigation.
At least 52 foreign soldiers – about half of them Americans – have been killed in so-called “green on blue” attacks this year, compared with 35 for the whole of last year.
“I’m mad as hell about them, to be honest with you,” Gen John Allen, the top commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, told CBS’s 60 Minutes show, in an interview scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday.
“It reverberates everywhere across the United States. You know, we’re willing to sacrifice a lot for this campaign, but we’re not willing to be murdered for it.”
It was announced this month that hundreds of soldiers in Afghanistan had been dismissed or detained after an inquiry into the surge of insider attacks.
Nato combat troops are set to withdraw by the end of 2014, but a central plank of the strategy is that foreign soldiers will serve alongside and train Afghans for many years to come.
Correspondents say that may not be realistic given the ever increasing number of Afghans who turn their weapons on their foreign allies.
