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发帖数: 29846 | 1 By GRAHAM BOWLEY
¶ KABUL, Afghanistan — Two more United States soldiers were killed in
southern Afghanistan on Thursday when an Afghan soldier, apparently in
league with a civilian, killed an Afghan tower guard and attacked a barracks
with gunfire and a rocket, officials said.
¶ Four American soldiers were shot dead last week, including two at the
Afghan Interior Ministry, after the burning of copies of the Koran at a
NATO base in Afghanistan set off protests across the country.
¶ The attack on Thursday took place at a joint Afghan-NATO base in the
Zhare district in Kandahar Province. Four other Americans were wounded in
the attack, which began around 2:30 a.m. local time.
¶ The two men who mounted the assault fled afterward, but American
forces called helicopters to pursue them. Masoom Khan, the district chief of
police, said that the two were killed by helicopter gunfire more than a
mile from the scene of the attack.
¶ The base is close to the village of Sangesar, the birthplace of the
Taliban and the hometown of its leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar. Mr. Khan said
the attackers were suspected of having links to the insurgency.
¶ The Afghan soldier involved in the shooting, he said, was a platoon
leader who had taken part in joint patrols with Americans. The civilian was
an Afghan literacy instructor at the base.
¶ “We believe that both of the attackers had links with the Taliban,”
Mr. Khan said.
¶ NATO issued a statement that did not give the victims’ nationalities
. “Two individuals, one believed to be an Afghan National Army service
member and the other in civilian clothing, turned their weapons
indiscriminately against International Security Assistance Force and Afghan
National Security Force service members in southern Afghanistan today,
killing two I.S.A.F. service members,” the statement read.
¶ The deaths of the two Americans at the Afghan Interior Ministry on
Saturday prompted NATO to withdraw immediately hundreds of military advisers
and trainers from government ministries in Kabul. On Thursday, a NATO
spokesman, Brig. Gen. Lewis Boone, said some of the advisers were returning
to the ministries, but he did not specify which offices were involved.
¶ Three investigations are under way into the Koran-burning episode at
Bagram Air Base last week. Protests prompted by it recurred for days and
claimed at least 29 Afghan lives, in addition to those of the American
soldiers. One of the investigations is being mounted by Americans, one by
Afghans, and the third is a joint inquiry. The formal American military
investigation is the only one that can lead to punishment; the others can
offer recommendations but carry no legal weight. |
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