A calm winter that saw relatively little violence had Western officials speculating that the “insider attack” phenomenon had more or less been sorted out. The second attack in four days had thrown that into doubt, however, with a major shooting at a police headquarters in Wardak Province.
The attacker, a police officer, opened fire on US troops and their Afghan counterparts at the headquarters, killing two US troops and two Afghans. He was also killed in the shooting.
The US has seen its share of problems in the Wardak Province in recent weeks, with the Karzai government ordering all US special forces out of the province over a series of torture incidents and “disappearances” of civilians, as well as the attack on a hospital. NATO today confirmed plans to transfer all security in the province to Afghan forces.
A previous incident Friday saw three Afghan soldiers attacking a US base in the nearby Kapisa Province, in the same district which saw US soldiers killing a number of civilian bystanders during a night raid. Blowback, it seems, is alive and well in occupied Afghanistan.