FEB. 25, 2012
2 U.S. Officers Slain; Advisers to Exit Kabul Ministries
By GRAHAM BOWLEY and ALISSA J. RUBIN
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Two American officers were shot dead inside the Interior Ministry building here on Saturday, and NATO responded by immediately pulling all its advisers out of Afghan ministries in Kabul, in a deepening of the crisis over the American military's burning of Korans at a NATO military base.
The order by the NATO commander, Gen. John R. Allen, came on the fifth day of virulent anti-American demonstrations across the country, and it was a clear sign of concern that the fury had reached deeply into even the Afghan security forces and ministries working most closely with the coalition.
On Sunday, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that it had identified a suspect who had fled and was "believed to be an employee of one of the departments of the Interior Ministry."
President Hamid Karzai called for calm during a televised news conference Sunday from the presidential palace. It was a time for self-restraint, he said, "so that it does not provide an opportunity for the enemy to take advantage."
In his address, President Karzai said he understood the decision by NATO to withdraw its advisers but said it could be temporary. He did not comment on the shooting of the two officers.
The killings, which happened within one of the most tightly secured areas of the ministry, add to the drumbeat of concern about a deepening animosity between civilians and militaries on both sides that have led to American and coalition forces being killed in increasing numbers even before the Koran burning ignited nationwide rioting.
And the decision to withdraw from the Afghan ministries suddenly called into question the coalition's entire strategy of joint operations with Afghan forces across the country, although General Allen said NATO was still committed to fighting the war in Afghanistan.
"I condemn today's attack at the Afghan Ministry of Interior that killed two of our coalition officers," General Allen said in a statement. The military had not yet found the person who carried out the shooting, he said, adding: "The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered. We are committed to our partnership with the government of Afghanistan to reach our common goal of a peaceful, stable and secure Afghanistan in the near future."
An American defense official who served in Afghanistan said NATO forces around the country had been told in recent days to keep their distance from their Afghan counterparts on shared bases out of concern that there could be more attacks on them by Afghan soldiers.
The killings on Saturday are only the latest chapter in the deteriorating relations between the Afghans and NATO. Among the recent events that have heightened tensions are an Afghan soldier's recent killing of French troops that led the French to move up their withdrawal date, and outrage over a video that showed four American Marines urinating on bodies that were said to be those of Taliban fighters.
The Koran burning, however, has taken the animosity to a new level, eroding further the weakened trust between the Afghans and Americans. On Thursday, two American soldiers were shot to death by a member of the Afghan Army at a base in eastern Afghanistan as protests about the Koran burning raged outside.
"We've got this happening at the highest level of the ministry and at the boots-on-the-ground level," said John Nagl, a fellow at the United States Naval Academy and a former Army officer who served in Iraq. "The American strategy is to hand over responsibility as rapidly as we can to the Afghans, and this is going to require enormous trust between the Afghans and the Americans. And that's now been violated on both sides, and we did it first."
The intensifying enmity toward the American presence a decade into the war is casting doubt on a central plank of the Obama administration's strategy to end the United States' involvement in the war: a close working relationship between Afghan forces and advisers and trainers who are trying to make the Afghans ready to defend and police the country on their own.
It is also likely to have an immediate bearing on several critical negotiations with Afghan officials.
An American official in Washington said the unrest and shootings of American personnel by their Afghan counterparts would have a "huge" impact on discussions planned for the coming weeks among officials from the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and other agencies.
On the agenda of the various interagency meetings is the future of the main American prison in Afghanistan, the detention facility in Parwan, which President Hamid Karzai wants handed to Afghan control in less than a month; how to proceed with stalled negotiations over the Strategic Partnership Document that is intended to map out relations between the United States and Afghanistan after 2014; and how large a pullout President Obama will announce at a NATO meeting planned for May in Chicago.
The official cautioned that no one was "panicking," but that the initial reaction to the growing hostility from Afghans was to convince more officials that the pace of the American withdrawal needed to quicken, and that the sooner the mission became one of training and counterterrorism, the better.
"You look at this as clearly and objectively as you can; what you see is that we're in a weaker position than we were maybe two or three or four weeks ago," said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was discussing internal deliberations. "I'm not sure anyone knows the clear way forward. It's gotten more and more complicated. It's fraught."
The shootings came on another violent day, as thousands of Afghans incensed by the American military's burning of Korans once again took to the streets in running clashes with the police that claimed the lives of another five Afghan protesters, officials said, while many more were wounded.
Chanting anti-American slogans calling for an end to NATO's presence, the protesters also vented broader fury, storming offices of the Afghan government and the United Nations, leading to violent standoffs.
Officials said that four protesters were shot by the Afghan police after a crowd of thousands attacked the United Nations headquarters in Kunduz Province in the north, wrecking public buildings and stores. Those shootings left 51 others wounded, hospital officials said.
In Kunduz Province, as in Herat on Friday, the crowds were reportedly stirred by provocateurs. Ghulam Mohammad Farhad, the deputy police chief of Kunduz, said he believed "there were some people who tried to sabotage the demonstration and turn it to violence."
In the east, 2,000 protesters, mainly students from one of the main high schools, marched on the governor's residence in Laghman Province, and 21 Afghans were wounded when the police opened fire.
The shooting of the two American officers took place in the Interior Ministry's command and control center, a highly restricted area where officials monitor conditions around the country, according to an Afghan official in the ministry who was not authorized to comment publicly.
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta condemned the "murder of two U.S. military officers," and said that the Afghan defense minister had called to offer his condolences. He also said that the interior minister had apologized to General Allen and promised to cooperate fully in the investigation.
General Allen's order to withdraw military advisers includes both those service members operating under the NATO flag, including members of the 49 coalition countries operating here, and other American military personnel who are separate from the NATO chain of command. There are at least several hundred advisers embedded in almost every department of the security ministries, but a NATO spokesman would not give a number. They work on everything from logistics and weapons training to strategic planning.
NATO is still investigating what led to the decision to burn Korans and other religious texts, an act that led President Obama to issue a public apology on Thursday.
Early reports said that the books had messages written in them from detained Taliban suspects. Most of the Korans that were rescued from the flames are still at Bagram Air Base in a locked container, kept as evidence.
The Taliban were quick to claim responsibility for the shooting, saying one of their members had infiltrated the ministry. The Taliban regularly claim responsibility for NATO deaths.
A Taliban spokesman also claimed the attacker was carrying a suicide vest, but that detail did not agree with any other reports.
Reporting was contributed by Matthew Rosenberg from Washington; Jawad Sukhanyar, Sharifullah Sahak and Sangar Rahimi from Kabul; and employees of The New York Times from Kunduz and Laghman Provinces.