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Attacks on Soldiers and Civilians Leave Dozens Dead in Afghanistan Soldiers and Civilians Die in Attacks in Afghanistan
(about 11 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two American soldiers were shot and killed by a member of the Afghan Army in eastern Afghanistan on Monday when a dispute broke out during a joint American and Afghan patrol, Afghan officials said. KABUL, Afghanistan — When the killing ended in northeast Helmand Province on Sunday, the only thing Afghan officials knew for certain was that the beheaded bodies of 15 men and 2 women lay in the desert, in Taliban territory, after a startling spasm of brutality. The question now dogging them is why.
There were unconfirmed reports that the dispute erupted after the convoy was hit by a roadside bomb. NATO confirmed that two of its soldiers had been killed by a member of the Afghan Army. Government officials scrambled for more than a day to explain the carnage. Hajji Naimatullah Khan, the governor of the Musa Qala district, initially reported that the Taliban had executed the 17 for attending a risqué party. But in a telephone interview he later revised his account, saying that witnesses believed the men had been identified as informers and dragged away from villages in his district. The two women, he added, had pleaded for the men’s lives, but this angered the Taliban, who killed them, too.
In a separate episode in the southeast, attackers killed 10 Afghan soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand Province early on Monday, in what a provincial spokesman described as the latest attack by insurgents who had infiltrated the Afghan military. “The Taliban learned that these are the people who had links with government,” Hajji Khan said of the victims. “They were detained in their homes and taken away.”
The Taliban, meanwhile, cut the throats of 17 civilians — including two women — in a rural, Taliban-controlled district of Helmand on Sunday, Afghan officials said. Musa Qala and the nearby district of Kajaki, where the bodies were reported found, are both longtime Taliban strongholds and scenes of heavy fighting with American and British troops over the years. The lasting Taliban presence has long marginalized government officials there, perhaps explaining the incoherent array of explanations for the beheadings.
The killing of American soldiers in the east, in Laghman Province, brought the number of coalition soldiers shot by Afghan police and military forces so far this year to 42, 12 of them this month alone. The Helmand governor’s office offered differing theories as well. It first released a statement suggesting that the two Taliban commanders had gotten into a fight over the two women that spiraled into a wider gun battle. Then the governor’s spokesman, Dawood Ahmadi, speculated that the victims might have been suspected of planning an anti-Taliban uprising. But that was only a very hopeful hypothesis, he admitted.
Noor Rahman, a Laghman police official, said the shooting occurred at about 9 a.m. in the Alingar district. “A verbal argument erupted and fire was exchanged,” he said. Lt. Col. Hagen Messer, a NATO spokesman in Kabul, said that the Afghan soldier was shot and killed in a return of fire and that no other coalition soldiers were wounded. Unusually, spokesmen for the Taliban, who are quick to text local journalists with news of their actions, were either silent or denied knowledge of the killings.
“According to our initial operational reporting, a service member of the ANA turned his weapon against ISAF forces, killing two ISAF service members,” Colonel Messer said, referring to the Afghan Army and the International Security Assistance Force, the formal name of the NATO-led force. “ISAF forces returned fire, killing the attacker.” If authoritative details were hard to come by, the attack drew many condemnations.
The shooting of the Afghan soldiers in the south in Helmand Province took place at a checkpoint in the Washir district, according to Dawood Ahmadi, the spokesman for the Helmand governor. President Hamid Karzai described the beheadings as a combination of mass murder, apostasy and hooliganism. The American Embassy in Kabul said the 17 victims had been shot and beheaded in a “shameful act.” And Gen. John R. Allen, commander of American and NATO troops here, called the killers “cowards” and predicted that the attack might help persuade villagers to rise up.
Mr. Ahmadi said five other Afghan soldiers fled the checkpoint. He described these as insurgents who had infiltrated the Afghan Army and plotted to carry out the attack. A surge of so-called insider attacks against United States troops continued on Monday, when an Afghan National Army soldier gunned down two Americans after a dispute broke out in Laghman Province, a restive and rugged part of eastern Afghanistan that no longer has much American presence, Afghan officials said.
“The enemy does not have the strength to fight our forces face to face,” he said. “Therefore, they try to carry out attacks by infiltrating in Afghan forces.” “A verbal argument erupted and fire was exchanged,” said Noor Rahman, a Laghman police official.
The number of so-called green-on-green, or insider, attacks by Afghan police and military forces on their own troops has risen sharply over the past two years, mirroring a similar increase in attacks by Afghan forces on NATO troops That brought the American death toll in such violence, also known as green-on-blue attacks, to 12 in the past three weeks, in a continuing crisis that is shaking trust between American military personnel and the Afghan forces they are training and working beside until the 2014 NATO military withdrawal.
The majority of attacks on Western forces are motivated by outrage or personal disputes, officials say. But officials blame infiltration by the Taliban for most of the Afghan-on-Afghan attacks. One-third of all American fatalities in August have now come at the hands of Afghan soldiers, policemen or other Afghans working close to American forces. Forty-two American and NATO soldiers have been slain by insider attacks in the first eight months of this year.
Early reports were confusing, however. The Ministry of Defense in Kabul, while confirming the deaths, rejected the characterization of the episode as an insider attack by infiltrators. A spokesman, Dawlat Waziri, said that a large number of insurgents had attacked the checkpoint, and that there had been a prolonged confrontation, leaving several members of the Taliban dead. Though Afghan officials identified the victims in Laghman as American soldiers, the American-led international military command would not confirm their nationalities. But a Western official provided an account of the attack: It began, he said, when a NATO convoy hit a roadside bomb. The blast did not injure anyone, but it damaged a vehicle, forcing the convoy to stop. Then a separate Afghan patrol crossed paths with the broken-down convoy, the official said, and that was when the shooting happened. The gunman was killed in a firefight.
In Helmand, officials said the authorities were investigating the killings of the 17 civilians, which occurred in the Kajaki district. “The government does not have access to this area because of the strong Taliban presence,” said Mr. Ahmadi, the provincial spokesman. For a while on Monday it also appeared that a similar attack — Afghan soldiers killing their colleagues — had occurred in Helmand in Washir District, near Nimroz and Farah Provinces.
He vowed that a military operation would be carried out there soon. He said none of the victims had any ties to the government. There, Taliban attackers killed 10 Afghan National Army soldiers during an ambush at a checkpoint in an hourlong firefight that also left 4 soldiers wounded and 11 Taliban fighters dead.
The Afghan Interior Ministry provided a similar account of the killings and called them “another unforgivable and shameful crime.” The ministry said the attack took place Sunday in the Shah Kariz region of Kajaki when “armed Taliban opened fire” and slit the throats of “17 innocent civilians, including 2 women.” Initially, the Helmand governor’s office said some insurgents had infiltrated the Afghan ranks and plotted to help the attack. But the office later revised its account, saying five soldiers had fled during the firefight — cowards, a spokesman suggested, but not infiltrators — and that they were being investigated.
By late Monday morning a disagreement had emerged between local Helmand officials about the killings.

Reporting was contributed by Graham Bowley, Sangar Rahimi and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul, and an employee of The New York Times from Helmand Province.

Haji Naimatullah Khan, the governor of the Musa Qala district, which borders Kajaki to the west, said the throat cuttings occurred in Musa Qala, in a village known Roshan Abad.
He confirmed the death toll of 17, but said the men who were killed either did have links to the government or were providing information to the authorities. Two women were killed, he said, because they had begged the Taliban to spare the lives of the men. He said he based his account on reports from witnesses and relatives of the victims.
“Sometimes they provided intelligence information to the government, and the Taliban learned that these are the people who had links with government,” Haji Khan said of the victims. “They were detained in their homes and taken away.”
“The area is not secure, and there is a heavy presence of Taliban,” he said.

Reporting was contributed by Taimoor Shah, Sangar Rahimi and an employee of The New York Times from Kabul, and an employee of The New York Times from Helmand Province.