Rest in peace to the fallen. This is the second shooting by an Afghani soldier this month that ‘turned’ and it is something that you constantly have to think about when working around these folks. The old saying of ‘Be polite. Be courteous. But have a plan to kill everyone that you meet‘, holds true for both the military and for contractors in this war. If anyone finds out more info, I will make the edit here, or you can add it in the comments section. –Matt
Edit: July 24, 2010 – Charles Buckman was one of the dead. The men worked for MPRI at the Regional Military Training Center.
Edit: July 30, 2010 – The Washington Times just published an interesting article about the details of this shooting. It is currently being investigated by the FBI and others, but from what I can gather, there are numerous conflicting stories about what was going on. They say the MPRI contractor and the Afghani were friends, but then the Afghani shoots him due to an argument?
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NATO says 4 dead in shooting at training range
July 21, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Two American civilians and two Afghan soldiers were killed in a shooting on a northern Afghan military base, NATO said.
An Afghan soldier who trained others at the base outside Mazar-e-Sharif started shooting during a weapons exercise Tuesday, the international military coalition said in a statement.
The shooter was one of those killed, and it was not immediately clear if he targeted someone or if bullets had gone astray. It also was not clear how many people fired weapons.
NATO and Afghan forces are jointly investigating, Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said. There were no immediate details on the U.S. civilians, but contractors commonly work as trainers at such bases.
Intentional shootings by Afghans against coalition partners have occurred previously but still are rare.
Earlier this month, an Afghan soldier killed three British service members with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the dead of night.
The soldier fled after that attack, leaving his motive unclear. But the Taliban claimed he was a militant sympathizer taken in by insurgents after the assault.
In November, an Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand.
The attacks come as the international coalition is ramping up training of Afghan soldiers and policemen so they can ultimately take responsibility for securing and defending the nation.
The speed with which Afghan security forces are growing — the allies set an interim goal of expanding the Afghan army from 85,000 in 2009 to 134,000 troops by October 2011 — has raised concerns about infiltration by the Taliban and the professionalism of the forces.
Story here.