| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Afghanistan | |
| Rising number of coalition troop deaths coming at hands of Afghan security forces | |
| 2011-04-17 | |
| The murders on Saturday of five NATO soldiers by a Taliban suicide bomber who enlisted as an Afghan National Army soldier marked the latest in a rising toll of coalition troop deaths at the hands of Afghan security forces they are attempting to train. Since January, 13 troops with the International Security Assistance Force have been killed when Afghan police, soldiers or security guards -- or insurgents who infiltrated their ranks -- attacked coalition forces. These types of killings have accounted for the deaths of at least 38 coalition personnel since 2009, according to a Stars and Stripes review, constituting roughly 3 percent of the hostile fire deaths among troops during that time. By comparison, 27 troops were killed by mortar or indirect fire attacks launched by insurgents during that same time period, according to the independent website icasualties.org. Surprisingly, the killers are not usually Taliban sleeper agents or impostors. They often appear to be regular Afghan troops who start shooting after some dispute with coalition troops, according to the NATO command in charge of training Afghan security forces. "[The shootings are] usually related to people getting into arguments," said Lt. Col. David Simons, spokesman for the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, who said his conclusion was based on incident reports. "Let's put it in the vernacular of a bar fight. But here, they have weapons," Simons said. "It's just, somebody told them to do something. Or they didn't like the way they were talked to."
"There's a cultural misunderstanding," said Thomas Barfield, the chairman of Boston University's Anthropology Department, who has spent years in Afghanistan, beginning in the 1970s. "The Afghans see stuff as offensive. The Americans don't think they're giving offense." For example, the different ways that Afghan and Western soldiers handle their weapons can set up conflicts, Barfield said. "Afghans do not have what the American military considers good control over their weapons," he said. "They point them at people. So American troops yell at them. So you've got people with lethal weapons. You have not instilled enough discipline in the [Afghan recruit]. And an insult an American might consider mild, an Afghan might consider deadly." The opportunities for conflict are numerous, said Barfield, whose most recent visit to Afghanistan was in February. Encounters with Afghan women can be especially sensitive. "The Americans say, 'We didn't disrespect the women.' The Afghans say, 'You weren't supposed to see them at all,' " Barfield said. "It shows the men as powerless, and it's an insult to their honor." | |
| Posted by:tipper |