Soldier who killed U.S. general spent three years in Afghan army
Wed, Aug 06 21:58 PM EDT
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By Hamid Shalizi and Krista Mahr
KABUL (Reuters) - The Afghan who opened fire on a high-ranking delegation visiting a military complex in Kabul, killing U.S. Major General Harold Greene, had served in the army for three years, an Afghan defense official said on Wednesday.
In the immediate aftermath of Tuesday's attack, the Defence Ministry had described the gunman, who was also killed, as a "terrorist in army uniform", indicating its belief he was an Islamist militant who had infiltrated the army from outside.
While details about the identity of the soldier and his motivation remain sketchy, the fact that he had spent so long in the army before turning on fellow soldiers is likely to be a major line of inquiry in an investigation launched on Wednesday.
"What motivated the shooting is still under investigation, but the shooter was an army soldier, not a terrorist from outside the base," said the official.
Initial findings from the investigation were due to land on Afghan President Hamid Karzai's desk by the evening.
Greene was the most senior U.S. military official killed in action overseas since the war in Vietnam. A German general was also among 14 coalition troops wounded after the man opened fire with a light machine gun.
The attack has raised fresh questions about the ability of NATO soldiers stationed in Afghanistan to train local forces, and will undermine trust between them at a crucial time.
Most foreign soldiers plan to withdraw from the war-torn country by the end of 2014, but, recognizing the challenge Afghan forces face in battling a vicious insurgency led by the Taliban, a contingent could remain beyond the deadline in a training and counter-terrorism role.
"LISTENING TO A SPEECH"
At their peak in 2012, so-called "insider" attacks threatened the very foundation of the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan and prompted the coalition to bring in a host of measures to reduce interaction with their local allies.
The number of incidents fell from nearly 50 in 2012 to about 15 last year.
"Despite all security measures, such attacks by insiders can never be totally ruled out," a German defense ministry spokesman said.
The coalition, called the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), insisted the attack would not compromise their plans to train and assist Afghanistan's fledgling armed forces, built from scratch after the Taliban were ousted in 2001.
"We do not view the incident at Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul yesterday as representative of the positive relationship which we have nurtured," it said in a statement.
According to a spokesman for the German forces' mission command in Potsdam, near Berlin, the shooting at the complex on the outskirts of Kabul came from a neighboring building.
"The ISAF delegation was listening to a speech in the open air on the premises of the Marshal Fahim National Defense University when somebody opened fire," he said.
The attack was initially believed to have taken place at the British-backed officer training academy nicknamed "Sandhurst in the Sand".
The coalition later clarified that it happened on another part of the complex, where security was managed by the Afghans.
High-ranking officers, including Greene and Brigadier General Michael Bartscher of Germany, were likely to have had their own protection teams.
According to an Afghan Interior Ministry official, initial information suggests that the attacker was called Rafiullah.
The defense official said he was a low-ranking soldier who was recruited to join the army from Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan bordering Pakistan.
The area is a hotbed of Taliban activity and a stronghold of their Islamist militant allies, the Haqqani network.
The soldier's reasons for opening fire may never be known, but the fact that the Taliban, who regularly make exaggerated claims of attacks on foreign forces, have remained silent suggests the soldier may have acted of his own accord.
(Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold and Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; Writing by Jessica Donati; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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Lights set to go out in Afghanistan's Kandahar after U.S. aid winds down
Tue, Aug 05 21:38 PM EDT
By Jessica Donati and Sarwar Amani
KABUL/KANDAHAR Afghanistan (Reuters) - When the United States stops funding power generation in Afghanistan's southern city of Kandahar next year, the lights are set to go out and factories will fall idle, playing into the hands of Taliban insurgents active in the area.
Bringing a stable source of electricity to Kandahar, the cradle of the hardline Islamist movement and once a base for its leader Mullah Omar, was a top U.S. counter-insurgency priority as Washington pursued its policy of winning hearts and minds.
But regular power in the city is still years away, and when the United States finally ends subsidies - currently running at just over $1 million a month - in September 2015, Kandahar could lose around half its severely limited electricity supplies, Afghan power officials and U.S. inspectors say.
The Taliban, meanwhile, control about half the 12 megawatts (MW) of electricity supplied to Kandahar province from the Kajaki plant in neighboring Helmand province, ensuring a stable supply of power in their strongholds, according to state power firm Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) in Kandahar.
"There are some 130 different factories operating in Kandahar whose electricity is maintained and paid for by the Americans," said Fuzl Haq, a businessman in Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city.
"If the Americans stop paying for the fuel to run these factories, some 6,000 workers will lose their jobs," Haq said, reflecting the concerns of many Kandaharis.
"These are all young people and they may join up with the Taliban or resort to crime in order to earn money," he said.
Alex Bronstein-Moffly, a spokesman for the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), said power shortages in insurgent heartlands would be a major setback 13 years after the Taliban were toppled in a U.S.-backed war.
"If electrical service to Kandahar is compromised it could end up endangering counter-insurgency and economic gains made over the last few years," he said.
Kandahar has been a strategic settlement since the time of Alexander the Great, a vital trade route for South and Central Asia that has seen the birth and death of empires. Yet modern Kandahar is emblematic of one of the world's poorest countries, where only 30 percent of people have access to electricity.
LONG DELAYS
U.S. subsidies were intended to fill in until the power grid reached Kandahar and a new turbine was installed at the Kajaki dam. Both projects remain years away from completion, not least because of strong resistance from the Taliban in the region.
"It appears that the U.S. still has no realistic plan for helping the Afghan government develop a sustainable source of electricity," John Sopko, the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan, wrote in a report published on Tuesday.
Major Brad Avots, a Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. government had helped increase Afghans' access to regular electricity supplies five-fold since 2002.
He said the U.S. government was working on ways to help Afghans develop a sustainable power solution, in part by upgrading infrastructure while Afghanistan is "transitioning away from subsidies by charging consumers for the electricity they consume".
"The goal of both the Afghan and U.S. governments is to make electricity production in Kandahar - and elsewhere in Afghanistan - self-financing," he said.
Winning over locals in the hot, dusty cluster of low-slung houses and markets has been a priority for the United States which, like other foreign powers, is due to withdraw most of its troops by the end of the year.
The Afghan government says it cannot afford to maintain Kandahar's power generators or pay for the fuel. Diesel supplies in the city are already being rationed and power outages will be inevitable, says the state-owned power company.
"We have no other way (of operating)," said DABS chief commercial officer Mirwais Alami in Kabul. "If businesses cannot compete with Kabul in Kandahar, they will collapse."
How to pay for Kandahar's power without U.S. or Afghan government funds is a major problem, with powerful tribal and political leaders already refusing to pay their electricity bills, according to DABS officials.
Revenue collection in the south has also been dented by the Taliban, who control areas along power lines.
"Taliban collect revenue from electricity in places under their control," said engineer Sayed Rasoul, the head of DABS in Kandahar.
The U.S. aid agency has just awarded a new $27 million, four-year project to improve electricity revenue collection and management in Kandahar. The cash cannot be used to pay for fuel. It says increasing tariffs was one way to keep Kandahar's two 10 MW generators running.
"USAID has worked with DABS to prepare users to pay for the more expensive power generated with diesel until DABS completes work on a new turbine at Kajaki and on the power transmission line," said Donald "Larry" Sampler, Assistant to the Administrator in the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs in Washington.
However, plans to increase tariffs as much as tenfold or more may be unrealistic in such a poor country.
(Additional reporting by Missy Ryan in Washington; Reporting by Jessica Donati; Editing by Michael Perry, Mike Collett-White and Lisa Shumaker)
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By Reuters / Web Desk
Published: August 5, 2014
An Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier keeps watch at the gate of a British-run military training academy Camp Qargha, in Kabul August 5, 2014. The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said there had been "an incident" between Afghan and foreign troops at a British-run military training academy in Kabul on Tuesday. PHOTO: REUTERS
BERLIN:
A serving two star US general was reportedly killed and a German Brigadier General was injured when a man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire at them on Tuesday, German news outlet Der Spiegel reported. ISAF neither confirmed nor denied whether the soldier killed was a US General.
One serviceman was killed and 14 others wounded. However, other reports suggested that a German general had been injured, when a man in an Afghan army uniform fired at people at the British military training academy in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul.
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the occurrence of the incident today which involved ISAF and local Afghan troops at the Marshal Fahim National Defense University in Kabul. They confirmed that an ISAF service member had been killed in the incident.
However, ISAF did not disclose the nationality or rank of the serviceman.
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire Tuesday on NATO troops at a military base, killing a U.S. two-star general and wounding some 15 people, among them a German brigadier general and a number of Americans troops, authorities said.
Afghan attack kills US major general, wounds 15 Associated Press
Man in Afghan uniform shoots at foreign troops Associated Press
Pentagon confirms US general killed in Kabul attack AFP
'Inside' Attacker Leads Deadly Assault at Afghan Military Academy The Atlantic Wire
Taliban attack Afghan police chief's home Associated Press
The attack at Camp Qargha, a base west of the capital, Kabul, killed who is believed to be the highest-ranking U.S. officer to die in the nearly 13-year war and comes as foreign troops prepare to withdraw by the year's end. While details remained murky about what sparked the attack, it showed the challenges still remaining in Afghanistan, a nation that's known three decades of war without end.
Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry, said a "terrorist in an army uniform" opened fire on both local and international troops. Azimi said the shooter had been killed and that three Afghan army officers were wounded. He did not offer a motive for the assault.
U.S. officials identified the dead U.S. officer as a major general. One U.S. official said about half of the wounded were Americans. That officials spoke on condition of anonymity as the officials were not allowed discuss the information by name ahead of an official announcement.
Germany's military said 15 NATO soldiers were wounded in an assault launched "probably by internal attackers." The wounded included a German brigadier general, who the German military said was receiving medical treatment and was "not in a life-threatening condition."
NATO said it was investigating the attack, which Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned as "cowardly."
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A NATO soldier opens fire in an apparent warning shot …
A NATO soldier opens fire in an apparent warning shot in the vicinity of journalists near the main g …
It is "an act by the enemies who don't want to see Afghanistan have strong institutions," Karzai said in a statement.
In a statement sent to journalists, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid praised the "Afghan soldier" who carried out the attack, as well as a police officer in Paktia province who shot at NATO forces earlier Tuesday. He did not claim the attacks.
Qargha is known as "Sandhurst in the Sand"— referring to the famed British military academy — as British forces oversaw building the officer school and its training program. In a statement, the British Defense Ministry said it was investigating the incident and that "it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."
Soldiers were tense in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One soldier in a NATO convoy leaving Camp Qargha fired an apparent warning shot in the vicinity of Associated Press journalists who were in a car, as well as pedestrians standing nearby. AP photographer Massoud Hossaini said he and an AP colleague were about 15 feet (5.5 meters) from the soldier at the time. Hossaini said he thought the soldier fired a pistol.
"The vehicle before the last one, someone shouted at me," Hossaini said. "The last one, the soldier opened fire."
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Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers keep watch at the …
Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers keep watch at the gate of a British-run military training academ …
No one was wounded.
The Qargha shooting comes as so-called "insider attacks" — incidents in which Afghan security turn on their NATO partners — largely dropped last year. In 2013, there were 16 deaths in 10 separate attacks. In 2012, such attacks killed 53 coalition troops in 38 separate attacks.
Such "insider attacks" are sometimes claimed by the Taliban insurgency as proof of their infiltration. Others are attributed to personal disputes or resentment by Afghans who have soured on the continued international presence in their country more than a dozen years after the fall of the Taliban's ultra-conservative Islamic regime.
Foreign aid workers, contractors, journalists and other civilians in Afghanistan are increasingly becoming targets of violence as the U.S.-led military coalition continues a withdrawal to be complete by the end of the year.
In eastern Paktia province, an Afghan police guard also exchanged fire Tuesday with NATO troops near the governor's office, provincial police chief Gen. Zelmia Oryakhail said. The guard was killed in the gunfight, he said. It wasn't clear if the two incidents were linked and police said they were investigating the incident.
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An Afghan laborer walks past a gate of Camp Qargha …
An Afghan laborer walks past a gate of Camp Qargha as Afghanistan National Army soldiers stand guard …
Meanwhile Tuesday, a NATO helicopter strike targeting missile-launching Taliban militants killed four civilians in western Afghanistan, an Afghan official said Tuesday. NATO said they were investigating the attack.
The attack in western Herat province comes as civilian casualties from NATO attacks remain a contentious issue across the country. Almost 200 people protested against NATO in Herat on Tuesday, carrying the bodies of the dead civilians into the provincial capital and demanding an investigation.
In a statement, NATO said it was aware of the attack and was investigating, without elaborating.
Civilians increasingly find themselves under fire as the 2001 U.S.-led war draws to a close, as Afghan forces take the lead in operations targeting the Taliban. The civilian death toll in the war in Afghanistan rose 17 percent for the first half of this year, the United Nations reported in July. The U.N. said 1,564 civilians were killed from January through June, compared with 1,342 in the first six months of 2013. It blamed
Insurgents were responsible for 74 percent of the casualties, the U.N. said, while pro-government forces were responsible for 9 percent, government forces 8 percent and foreign troops just 1 percent. The rest could not be attributed to any group.
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An Afghanistan National Army soldier stands guard at …
An Afghanistan National Army soldier stands guard at a gate of Camp Qargha, west of Kabul, Afghanist …
Karzai has repeatedly clashed with NATO over civilian casualties and strongly condemned the helicopter attack Tuesday.
Afghan security forces also increasingly find themselves under attack as the planned foreign troop withdrawal draws near. On Tuesday, a police car struck a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Nouristan, killing three officers, provincial police chief Abdul Baqi Nouristani said. Two other roadside bombs in northern Sari Pul province killed three people, including a district police chief and his driver, deputy provincial police chief Sakhi Dad Haidary said.
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Burns reported from Washington.
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Associated Press writers David Rising in Berlin, Danica Kirka in London, Amir Shah in Kabul, Afghanistan, and Jon Gambrell in Cairo contributed to this report.
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Father of general slain in Afghanistan attack remembers his son
Wed, Aug 06 16:52 PM EDT
By TG Branfalt Jr.
GUILDERLAND N.Y. (Reuters) - The father of Major General Harold J. Greene on Wednesday described his son, killed in an Afghanistan insider attack a day earlier, as "unique to the military," a popular kid whose intellect led to his military success.
In an interview at his home in upstate New York, Harold F. Greene told the story of a boy who made a city out of a sand dune, was so smart that Guilderland High School allowed him to skip his senior year, and, as an adult, shaped the weapons used by the military.
"(He) was a kid I could be proud of," his father said. "It's our country that lost, really."
The eldest son of Harold F. Greene and his wife Eva, who died in February 2013, found an "accidental" route to his military career, his father said. During his freshman year at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, he enrolled in the ROTC program to fulfill a physical education requirement required by the college.
His ROTC performance earned him a full academic scholarship, a boon for the family with two other boys about to enter college as well. It also gave his family and the military a preview of what Greene would become, as he rose to Cadet Commander and earned the rank of Second Lieutenant upon graduating from RPI - with both bachelor's and master's degrees - and began his military career.
Greene visited most of the U.S. combat zones during his military career, but was never put on the front lines. His role was more technical, dealing with the processes of developing and implementing weaponry. His father said that the drone program is a byproduct of his son's early career.
"He was unique to the military," his father said. "He was performing a function that took in everything from research to development and he helped develop weapons systems that really help save a lot of lives in the field."
As a captain, he married his wife, then-Captain Sue Myers. Myers, now a retired colonel, who is a professor at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where the family has a home. The couple has two children, Amelia and Matthew, who is a West Point graduate and a first lieutenant in the Army.
Greene had received his second star as a general and was eligible to retire, but he opted to continue his career.
The last time the elder Greene saw his oldest son was December, but it was just a coincidence that it was around the winter holidays. Major General Greene made it a point to visit his family whenever he returned from a tour.
He was shot and killed in Afghanistan on Tuesday. His body will arrive at Dover Air Force Base early on Thursday and he will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg, G Crosse)
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