Pilot Kills Eight US Soldiers, One Contractor in Kabul Airport Attack

Reports Say Soldiers, Pilot Got into Argument

At least nine American members of the NATO occupation force were killed today in Kabul Airport when an apparent argument with a pilot turned into a shootout. The pilot killed eight NATO soldiers and one NATO civilian contractor before being slain himself.

The pilot had been employed as a pilot for 20 years, although the Afghan Defense Ministry claimed today that he suffered from some unnamed “mental illness.” There was no indication what the argument was about.

There was an unconfirmed claim of responsibility from the Taliban shortly after news of the shooting went public. Though there have been plenty of such attacks recently, the multiple reports of an argument before the shooting suggests this was not a planned attack but a spur of the moment incident. The Taliban’s claim that the attacker was disguised as a soldier is also false.

NATO has declined to release the nationalities of any of the slain but multiple sources confirmed all were Americans. It is the second time in as many week that eight NATO soldiers have been killed in a single day, and raised the already record April death toll even further.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.