Afghanistan’s Soldiers Step Up Killings of Allied Forces/ NY Times

Damon Winter/The New York Times

The NY Times obtained a classified coalition report that acknowledges "a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat, a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between 'allies' in modern military history"-- i.e., US soldiers are being murdered by the very Afghani forces they are training and working alongside.  A full 6% of coalition forces deaths are due to this "unfriendly fire."

American soldiers training Afghan police officers in 2010. A report cites growing friction between the ostensible allies.

By MATTHEW ROSENBERG

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.

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...

“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...

UPDATE JAN 20:  KABUL, Afghanistan  President Nicolas Sarkozy of France suspended military operations as part of the American-led coalition in Afghanistan on Friday and said he was considering an early pullout of his nation’s forces after a man in Afghan Army uniform shot and killed four French soldiers...