Three more U.S. soldiers killed by Afghan in grim day for NATO

KABUL - Reuters

AP Photo

Three U.S. soldiers have been shot dead by an Afghan worker on a military base in southern Afghanistan, in a deadly 24 hours for NATO-led forces in the country during which six soldiers died in rogue attacks.
 
The shooting took place on Friday night in the Garmsir district of Helmand province, not far from where three U.S. special forces soldiers were killed by an Afghan policeman and comrades earlier in the day.

"Let me clearly say that those two incidents clearly do not reflect the overall situation here in Afghanistan," the chief NATO force spokesman, Brigadier-General Gunter Katz, told reporters on Saturday.
 
The soldiers were shot dead by a base employee who turned his gun on them, in the third rogue attack in four days. Military sources said the man had not been wearing a uniform and it was unclear how he got hold of the weapon.
 
An Afghan police commander and several of his men killed three U.S. Marines earlier in the day after inviting them to a dinner to discuss security. Afghan officials had earlier said that incident happened on Thursday night. 
 
The first three men were all Marine Corps special operations forces and appeared to have been killed in a planned attack by rogue Afghan forces. NATO calls such incidents green on blue attacks.
 
The NATO force says there have been 26 such attacks on foreign troops since January in which 34 people have been killed. Last year, there were 21 attacks in which 35 people were killed. 
 
Green on blue shootings, in which Afghan police or soldiers turn their guns on their Western colleagues, have seriously eroded trust between the allies as NATO combat soldiers prepare to hand over to Afghan forces by 2014, after which most foreign forces will leave the country.
 
But Katz said the incidents were relatively isolated and were not hurting morale or cooperation between foreign forces and the 350,000-strong Afghan Security Forces.
 
"We have almost 500,000 police and soldiers working together, side by side, enhancing their trust and enhancing their cooperation in order together to fight for a better future for this country," he said.