Attack at Afghan Base Kills US Soldier, Wounds 15

Kabul: A man dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire Tuesday on foreign troops at a military base, killing at least one US soldier and wounding 15 people, among them a German brigadier general and "about a dozen" Americans, authorities said.

Details about the attack at Camp Qargha, a base west of the capital, Kabul, weren't immediately clear. Gen. Mohammmad Zahir Azimi, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Defense Ministry, said a "terrorist in an army uniform" opened fire on both local and international troops. Azimi said the shooter had been killed and that three Afghan army officers were wounded.

A US official said one American soldier was killed and "about a dozen" of the wounded were Americans, but declined to comment further. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorised to discuss details of the attack by name on the record.

Germany's military said one NATO soldier was killed, while 15 NATO soldiers were wounded in an assault launched "probably by internal attackers." The wounded included a German brigadier general, who the German military said was receiving medical treatment and was "not in a life-threatening condition."

In its statement, NATO said that it was "in the process of assessing the situation."

Qargha is known as "Sandhurst in the sand"- referring to the famed British military academy - as British forces oversaw building the officer school and its training programme. In a statement, the British Defense Ministry said it was investigating the incident and that "it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time."

After the shooting, a soldier in a NATO convoy leaving Camp Qargha fired his pistol in an apparent warning shot in the vicinity of Associated Press journalists and pedestrians nearby. No one was wounded.

The Qargha shooting comes as so-called "insider attacks" - incidents in which Afghan security turn on their NATO partners - largely dropped last year. In 2013, there were 16 deaths in 10 separate attacks. In 2012, such attacks killed 53 coalition troops in 38 separate attacks.

Such "insider attacks" are sometimes claimed by the Taliban insurgency as proof of their infiltration. Others are attributed to personal disputes or resentment by Afghans who have soured on the continued international presence in their country more than a dozen years after the fall of the Taliban's ultra-conservative Islamic regime.

Foreign aid workers, contractors and other civilians in Afghanistan are increasingly becoming targets of violence as the US-led military coalition continues a withdrawal to be complete by the end of the year.

In eastern Paktia province, an Afghan police guard also exchanged fire Tuesday with NATO troops near the governor's office, provincial police chief Gen. Zelmia Oryakhail said. The guard was killed in the gunfight, he said. It wasn't clear if the two incidents were linked and police said they were investigating the incident.

Meanwhile Tuesday, a NATO helicopter strike targeting missile-launching Taliban militants killed four civilians in western Afghanistan, an Afghan official said on Tuesday. NATO said they were investigating the attack.

The attack in western Herat province comes as civilian casualties from NATO attacks remain a contentious issue across the country. Almost 200 people protested against NATO in Herat on Tuesday, carrying the bodies of the dead civilians into the provincial capital and demanding an investigation.

The strike happened Monday night in the province's Shindan district, said Raouf Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial chief of police. He said Taliban militants launched a missile at an airport nearby, drawing the NATO helicopter's fire. He said the NATO attack killed two men, one woman and a child.

In a statement, NATO said it was aware of the attack and was investigating, without elaborating.

NATO "takes all allegations of civilian casualties seriously, and is assessing the facts surrounding this incident," it said.

Civilians increasingly find themselves under fire as the 2001 U.S.-led war draws to a close, as Afghan forces take the lead in operations targeting the Taliban. The civilian death toll in the war in Afghanistan rose 17 percent for the first half of this year, the United Nations reported in July. The UN said 1,564 civilians were killed from January through June, compared with 1,342 in the first six months of 2013.

Insurgents were responsible for 74 percent of the casualties, the UN said, while pro-government forces were responsible for 9 percent, government forces 8 percent and foreign troops just 1 percent. The rest could not be attributed to any group.

Outgoing President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly clashed with NATO over civilian casualties and strongly condemned the helicopter attack on Tuesday.

Afghan security forces also increasingly find themselves under attack as the planned foreign troop withdrawal draws near. On Tuesday, a police car struck a roadside bomb in the eastern province of Nouristan, killing three officers, provincial police chief Abdul Baqi Nouristani said. Two other roadside bombs in northern Sari Pul province killed three people, including a district police chief and his driver, deputy provincial police chief Sakhi Dad Haidary said.