Afghanistan’s
Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces
By
Matthew Rosenberg
New
York Times, January 20, 2012
Kabul,
Afghanistan — American and other coalition forces here are
being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan
soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks
motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly
allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and
a classified coalition report obtained by The New York
Times.
American
soldiers training Afghan police officers in 2010:
growing
friction between the supposed allies.
A
decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear
that these killings have become the most visible symptom of
a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt
each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The
ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and
militaries on both sides, raising questions about what
future role the United States and its allies can expect to
play in Afghanistan.
Underscoring
the danger, four French service members were killed and a
number were wounded on Friday when a gunman wearing an
Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon on them,
according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in
eastern Afghanistan where the incident occurred and a
Western official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the
press. The Afghan police official, Asdullah Hamidi, said the
shooting happened in Tagab District, an area that is viewed
as dangerous and dominated by insurgent forces.
The
gunman is in custody, a NATO official said.
The
violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address
it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of American
efforts to build a functional Afghan Army, a pillar of the
Obama administration’s strategy for extricating the United
States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and
experts who helped shape the strategy.
The
problems risk leaving the United States and its allies
dependent on an Afghan force that is permeated by anti-Western
sentiment and incapable of combating the Taliban and other
militants when NATO’s combat mission ends in 2014, they
said.
American
Marines urinating on dead Afghans.
One
instance of the general level of antipathy in the war
exploded into uncomfortable view last week when video
emerged of American Marines urinating on dead Taliban
fighters. Although American commanders quickly took action
and condemned the act, chat-room and Facebook posts by
Marines and their supporters were full of praise for the
desecration.
But
the most troubling fallout has been the mounting number of
Westerners killed by their Afghan allies, events that have
been routinely dismissed by American and NATO officials as
isolated episodes that are the work of disturbed individual
soldiers or Taliban infiltrators, and not indicative of a
larger pattern. The unusually blunt report, which was
prepared for a subordinate American command in eastern
Afghanistan, takes a decidedly different view.
“Lethal
altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect
a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of
which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern
military history),” it said. Official NATO pronouncements
to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly
intellectually dishonest,” said the report, and it played
down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.
The
coalition refused to comment on the classified report. But
“incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have
wounded or killed I.S.A.F. members are isolated cases and
are not occurring on a routine basis,” said Lt. Col.
Jimmie E. Cummings Jr. of the Army, a spokesman for the
American-led International Security Assistance Force. “We
train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and
we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our
relationships.”
The
numbers appear to tell a different story. Although NATO does
not release a complete tally of its forces’ deaths at the
hands of Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified
report and coalition news releases indicate that Afghan
forces have attacked American and allied service members
nearly three dozen times since 2007.
Two
members of the French Foreign Legion and one American
soldier were killed in separate episodes in the past month,
according to statements by NATO. The classified report found
that between May 2007 and May 2011, when it was completed,
at least 58 Western service members were killed in 26
separate attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police
nationwide. Most of those attacks have occurred since
October 2009. This toll represented 6 percent of all hostile
coalition deaths during that period, the report said.
“The
sense of hatred is growing rapidly,” said an Afghan Army
colonel. He described his troops as “thieves, liars and
drug addicts,” but also said that the Americans were
“rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language.”
Senior
commanders largely manage to keep their feelings in check,
said the officer, who asked not to be named so he could
speak openly. But the officer said, “I am afraid it will
turn into a major problem in the near future in the lower
ranks of both armies.”
There
have been successes, especially among the elite Afghan
commandos and coalition Special Operations forces, most of
whom have undergone in-depth cultural training and speak at
least some Dari and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in
Afghanistan. But, as highlighted by the classified report,
familiarity in most cases appears to have mainly bred
contempt — and that, in turn, has undercut the benefits of
pairing up the forces.
The
problem has also featured in classified reports tracking
progress in the war effort, most of which are far more
negative than the public declarations of progress, said an
American officer, who asked not to be identified because he
was discussing secret information.
“If
you get two 18-year-olds from two different cultures and put
them in New York, you get a gang fight,” said Anthony H.
Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington who has advised the
American military on its Afghan strategy.
“What
you have here are two very different cultures with different
values,” he said in a telephone interview. “They treat
each other with contempt.”
The
United States soldier was killed this month when an Afghan
soldier opened fire on Americans playing volleyball at a
base in the southern province of Zabul. The assailant was
quickly gunned down. The deadliest single incident came last
April when an Afghan Air Force colonel, Ahmed Gul, killed
eight unsuspecting American officers and a contractor with
shots to the head inside their headquarters.
He
then killed himself after writing “God in your name” and
“God is one” in blood on the walls of the base,
according to an Air Force investigation of the incident
released this week.
In
a 436-page report, the Air Force investigators said the
initial coalition explanation for the attack — stress
brought on by financial problems — was only a small part
of Colonel Gul’s motivation. His primary motive was hatred
of the United States, and he planned the attack to kill as
many Americans as possible, the investigators said.
There
have been no reported instances of Americans’ killing
Afghan soldiers, although a rogue group of United States
soldiers killed three Afghan civilians for sport in 2010.
Yet there is ample evidence of American disregard for
Afghans. After the urination video circulated, a number of
those who had served in Afghanistan took to Facebook and
other Web sites to cheer on their compatriots, describing
Afghans of all stripes in harsh terms.
Many
messages were posted on public forums, others in private
message strings. One private exchange was provided to The
Times by a participant in the conversation; the names of
those posting matched those on record as having served in
the Marine Corps. In that conversation, a former Marine said
he thought the video was “pretty awesome.” Another said
he hoped it would happen more often.
The
70-page classified coalition report, titled “A Crisis of
Trust and Cultural Incompatibility,” goes far beyond
anecdotes. It was conducted by a behavioral scientist who
surveyed 613 Afghan soldiers and police officers, 215
American soldiers and 30 Afghan interpreters who worked for
the Americans.
While
the report focused on three areas of eastern Afghanistan,
many of the Afghan soldiers interviewed had served elsewhere
in Afghanistan and the author believed that they constituted
a sample representative of the entire country.
“There
are pervasive feelings of animosity and distrust A.N.S.F.
personnel have towards U.S. forces,” the report said,
using military’s abbreviation for Afghan security forces.
The list of Afghan complaints against the Americans ran the
gamut from the killing of civilians to urinating in public
and cursing.
“U.S.
soldiers don’t listen, they are too arrogant,” said one
of the Afghan soldiers surveyed, according to the report.
“They get upset due to their casualties, so they take it
out on civilians during their searches,” said another.
The
Americans were equally as scathing. “U.S. soldiers’
perceptions of A.N.A. members were extremely negative across
categories,” the report found, using the initials for the
Afghan National Army. Those categories included
“trustworthiness on patrol,” “honesty and integrity,”
and “drug abuse.” The Americans also voiced suspicions
about the Afghans being in league with the Taliban, a
problem well documented among the Afghan police.
“They
are stoned all the time; some even while on patrol with us,”
one soldier was quoted as saying. Another said, “They are
pretty much gutless in combat; we do most of the fighting.”
* Alissa J.
Rubin, Rod Nordland, Sangar Rahimi and Graham Bowley
contributed reporting from Kabul.
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