Nato pulls out of Afghan ministries after Kabul attack

[K. A. Pital]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17165410

Nato has withdrawn all its personnel from Afghan ministries after two senior US officers were shot dead in the interior ministry building in Kabul.

Nato said an "individual" had turned his gun on the officers, believed to be a colonel and major, and had not yet been identified or caught.

Nato commander Gen John Allen condemned the attack as "cowardly".

The shootings come amid five days of deadly protests over the burning of copies of the Koran by US soldiers.
Taliban statement

The interior ministry was put in lock-down after the shootings, officials said.

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Kabul says eight shots were reported inside the building, which should be one of the safest in the capital, and that any Afghan who carried out the attack would have had the highest clearance.

Local media reports said the gunman was an Afghan policeman but this has not been confirmed.

The reports suggest the incident followed a "verbal clash".

Gen Allen said he condemned the attack, adding: "We will pursue all leads to find the person responsible. The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered."
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Kabul

If the gunman is Afghan, serious questions will be raised about how an attacker managed to get inside one of the most secure buildings in the country, especially its command and control centre.

Afghan security has signally failed to find a strategy to prevent the killing of Nato forces at the hands of Taliban infiltrators and rogue soldiers. One senior Afghan general said it was "a nightmare that refuses to go away" and one presidential aide called it a major obstacle that has created mistrust, anger and frustration between Nato operatives and their Afghan counterparts.

The pulling out of Nato advisers will for now paralyse important areas, such as technical support, intelligence sharing and many ongoing security operations. It disconnects the coordination of the Afghan government with Isaf.

The killings could also not have come at a more tense time - on a fifth day of demonstrations, with attacks on police and army positions across several provinces.

He said: "For obvious force protection reasons, I have also taken immediate measures to recall all other Isaf personnel working in ministries in and around Kabul."

But Gen Allen added: "We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan to reach our common goal of a peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan in the near future."

The UK Foreign Office confirmed it had "withdrawn civilian mentors and advisers from institutions in the city as a temporary measure".

The Pentagon said the US condemned the killings "in the strongest possible terms".

Press secretary George Little said Afghan Defence Minister Gen Abdul Rahim Wardak had called US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta to apologise for the shootings.

Mr Little said Mr Panetta was calling on Afghanistan to take decisive action to protect Nato forces.

Isaf spokesman Brig Gen Carsten Jacobson said that Nato could not yet reveal the identity of those killed.

He also said: "We cannot confirm where the killer came from, what his nationality was, whether he was in uniform or not, all these questions are not known."

Early reports suggest the two officers were shot in the ministry's command and control centre.

The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says this is where representatives of 34 provinces meet to plan security.

He quotes sources as saying that Interior Minister Bismullah Khan was having a meeting with senior Western officials elsewhere in the building when the shooting took place.

The Taliban said in a website statement that it carried out the attack in response to the Koran burnings.

But Gen Jacobson would not be drawn on any link to the protests.

He said: "We have seen an emotional week, we have seen a busy week - but it would be too early to say this incident was linked."

He added: "It is very regretful to see the loss of life again on this day, and that includes the loss of life that we have seen around demonstrations."
Obama apology

Angry protests over the burning of the Korans continued on Saturday, with a UN compound in the city of Kunduz set alight.

BBC's Orla Guerin: "People demand tough action against US troops"

Four people were killed and dozens injured in clashes in the city, according to local doctors. Three more people were killed in the southern province of Logar.

The governor's house in Laghman province also came under attack on Saturday and there were demonstrations in Paktia, Nangarhar and Sari Pul provinces.

Nearly 30 people have died since the protests began on Tuesday.

US personnel apparently inadvertently put the books into a rubbish incinerator at Bagram air base, near Kabul.

US President Barack Obama has apologised for the Koran-burning incident.

In a letter to his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai, Mr Obama said the books had been "unintentionally mishandled".

Muslims consider the Koran the literal word of God and treat each book with deep reverence.

Very smart. Sometimes I'm thinking that America is doing the Taliban's very best recruitment campaign.

[LaCroix]

So grunts getting killed is fine, but as soon as officers are getting shot, they leave?

[Flagg]

So grunts getting killed is fine, but as soon as officers are getting shot, they leave?

There's the right way, the wrong way, and the army way.

[Grumman]

Terrorism: it gets **** done.

[PainRack]

Hmmm... shots rang out after a verbal clash?and this is now supposedly a taliban infiltrator?how about an afghan being pissed enuff that in a moment of passion,he pulled out his pistol and attacked?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Terrorism: it gets **** done.

Is shooting an officer of an occupying army "terrorism"?

[Grumman]

Terrorism: it gets **** done.

Is shooting an officer of an occupying army "terrorism"?

I think so, if the "officer of an occupying army" part is incidental to your goals. There have been enough examples of civilians being targeted for showing insufficient reverence for the trappings of Islam that killing US soldiers in response to the destruction of vandalised library books could just be more of the same.

[Thanas]

It is not terrorism. I mean, yes, it can be, but primarily it is an armed insurrection against an occupying force and their collaborators.

[MKSheppard]

It turns out what happened was this:

We found that the detainees at Bagram Airbase's facility were using Korans to pass along messages to each other, or were just writing the islamic equivalent of WAGNER LOVES COCK inside them.

[this is a grave violation of islamic principles, too -- defacing a koran]

So we took them away, and we then stupidly didn't put them in the classified burn bag -- instead putting them in the general burn bag; which didn't ensure total destruction.

So now we have:

• Two US soldiers were killed when an Afghan soldier in Nangarhar turned his weapon on US forces at a base during protests. The Afghan soldier escaped into the crowd.
• On Feb. 20, one Albanian soldier (a Captain) was killed, and another (a Corporal) was put into a coma following in an ambush by Afghan policemen in Spin Boldak in Kandahar.
• A Major and Colonel found shot in the head in a supposedly secure area in the Afghan Interior Ministry. An area which has special locks and is covered by CCTV.
• Libyan protestors upset over the Koran burnings went and defaced some graves in the Commonwealth War Cemeteries nearby.

Blegh.

Fuckitol, let's just withdraw and use the Drone God to keep things at a low boil.

[Shroom Man 777]

Yes it would be best for them to resort to remote controlled unmanned aerial counter-freedomization in response to this recent spat of semiautomatic cranial freedomizations.

[Sarevok]

It turns out what happened was this:

We found that the detainees at Bagram Airbase's facility were using Korans to pass along messages to each other, or were just writing the islamic equivalent of WAGNER LOVES COCK inside them.

[this is a grave violation of islamic principles, too -- defacing a koran]

So we took them away, and we then stupidly didn't put them in the classified burn bag -- instead putting them in the general burn bag; which didn't ensure total destruction.

So now we have:

• Two US soldiers were killed when an Afghan soldier in Nangarhar turned his weapon on US forces at a base during protests. The Afghan soldier escaped into the crowd.
• On Feb. 20, one Albanian soldier (a Captain) was killed, and another (a Corporal) was put into a coma following in an ambush by Afghan policemen in Spin Boldak in Kandahar.
• A Major and Colonel found shot in the head in a supposedly secure area in the Afghan Interior Ministry. An area which has special locks and is covered by CCTV.
• Libyan protestors upset over the Koran burnings went and defaced some graves in the Commonwealth War Cemeteries nearby.

Blegh.

Fuckitol, let's just withdraw and use the Drone God to keep things at a low boil.

They could have simply given the Korans to local Madrashahs or Mosques. This is how worn copies of the holy Koran are taken out of circulations. There are certain rules for disposing of a book containing the words of our creator and personnel working in a moaque or madrashah are trained in such procedures. If the Americans did this they could have

1) Stopped wrong behavior by detainees under religious pretext

2) Earned some genuine favor from locals. Donating the holy Koran to religious establishments is looked upon with great favor and is one of most common forms of religious charity work in Islamic countries.

[Grumman]

They could have simply given the Korans to local Madrashahs or Mosques. This is how worn copies of the holy Koran are taken out of circulations. There are certain rules for disposing of a book containing the words of our creator and personnel working in a moaque or madrashah are trained in such procedures. If the Americans did this they could have

1) Stopped wrong behavior by detainees under religious pretext

2) Earned some genuine favor from locals. Donating the holy Koran to religious establishments is looked upon with great favor and is one of most common forms of religious charity work in Islamic countries.

I think your idea would be better served by separating the two parts: have a Muslim chaplain dispose of the defaced copies in accordance with the rules of their religion, and donate good copies of the Koran. Donating pre-defaced religious texts is probably going to stir things up anyway, plus it gives the detainees an easy way to smuggle messages out of the base.

[Sarevok]

How many muslims chaplains are there in the US military ? I heard (through unreliable sources) even few years back there was only one person who was officially a muslim chaplain.

Donating pre-defaced religious texts is probably going to stir things up anyway, plus it gives the detainees an easy way to smuggle messages out of the base.

Oh the religious organisations do not use collected copies of the holy Koran. They simply take them off peoples hands who do not know what to do with them and at same time don't want to keep a severely worn copy at home. I am not sure what the exact procedure is but IIRC the old books are buried or put underwater.

There are huge number of copies of the holy Koran in circulation and not all are in good condition. There are couple in my home that are unfortunately not in good state. Time permitting I will give them to proper authorities to take care of them. Islam is a very practical and pragmatical religon and contains guidelines for all situations.

[Jim Raynor]

So grunts getting killed is fine, but as soon as officers are getting shot, they leave?

Is this supposed to be a real criticism? So-called "grunts" are deployed on combat missions, with the expectation that they'll face enemy fire. They're armed and equipped for that job. High ranking officers (who are in command positions because of years of training and experience) inside what is supposed to be an allied government building are not. High ranking officers like a colonel do however make for far better Taliban propaganda if killed. It makes perfect sense to look out for their saftey.

[Cowl]

Almost out of a Monthy Python skit, this type of religious insanity.

[Simon_Jester]

Terrorism: it gets **** done.

Is shooting an officer of an occupying army "terrorism"?

I think so, if the "officer of an occupying army" part is incidental to your goals. There have been enough examples of civilians being targeted for showing insufficient reverence for the trappings of Islam that killing US soldiers in response to the destruction of vandalised library books could just be more of the same.

If this is what the international media says it is, then they're specifically going after US military officers. The motives could involve defaced religious texts, but they don't have to. There could be all kinds of other things going on, this may have been done by an Afghan officer with a grudge who had no affiliation whatsoever with the Taliban as far as I know, it may have been a long-range plan to infiltrate the headquarters that just happened to come to fruition now, right after a scandal that had nothing to do with the infiltration.

In any case, I don't think that's terrorism, though I had no end of trouble the last time I tried to classify what was and was not terrorism.

[General Mung Beans]

Terrorism: it gets **** done.

Is shooting an officer of an occupying army "terrorism"?

The Taliban is not the legitimate government of Afghanistan-even when it did control most of Afghanistan-3 (!) countries recognized it. And currently the legitimate government of Afghanistan is that of Mr. Karzai by whose grace we are in Afghanistan.

[Thanas]

By whose grace....heh. You really think that the US would pack up and leave if Karzai tells them to? Karzai is the classic case of the puppet.

[Simon_Jester]

Put this way- the Taliban are a rebel movement, and anyone with a smidgen of realism knows that the ISAF forces in Afghanistan have a substantial degree of control over the country. In their frame of reference, the Karzai government is functionally equivalent to Vichy and ISAF is an occupying army.

I don't think that we can call their actions terrorism under those conditions, when they attack that army specifically.

[General Mung Beans]

By whose grace....heh. You really think that the US would pack up and leave if Karzai tells them to? Karzai is the classic case of the puppet.

Look at Iraq for example-Obama did originally lobby to have some troops stay permanently but this failed. Not too mention Karzai makes plenty of statements critical of the Americans and other foreign troops in Afghanistan.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Terrorism: it gets **** done.

Is shooting an officer of an occupying army "terrorism"?

The Taliban is not the legitimate government of Afghanistan-even when it did control most of Afghanistan-3 (!) countries recognized it.

That's irrelevant. We and our puppets are most certainty no more legitimate.

More importantly for the question, it doesn't matter if the present "government" is legitimate or not; just because a soldier is working for a legitimate government that doesn't make shooting him terrorism. Were all the Ally soldiers in WWII who shot German and Japanese soldiers terrorists? Of course not. If some Resistance guy shot a Nazi soldier in the back of the head was he a terrorist? Nope.

We just have a tendency to label anyone we don't like "terrorist" regardless of what they are doing.

[Thanas]

By whose grace....heh. You really think that the US would pack up and leave if Karzai tells them to? Karzai is the classic case of the puppet.

Look at Iraq for example-Obama did originally lobby to have some troops stay permanently but this failed. Not too mention Karzai makes plenty of statements critical of the Americans and other foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Yeah, and these achieved what?