Is This the Beginning of ‘Insider Attack’ Units in Afghanistan?

US Troops Came Under Fire From 'Multiple Persons'

The details surrounding this weekend’s green-on-blue attack, in which the 2,000th US soldier was slain in Afghanistan, continue to be murky, but officials are now expressing concern at indications that it was not just another “lone insider” attack, but a whole “insider unit.”

The official investigation isn’t complete, but the troops say they came under fire from “multiple persons” and possible attacking from “multiple directions,” which would be a first for the insider attacks which usually begin and end with one attacker emptying his weapon and either being killed or running off.

The story actually seems to jibe with the Afghan government’s fist version of the attacks, in which they claimed the US troops fired on Afghan troops, and that the Afghan troops returned fire. The Afghans chalked the whole thing up to a “misunderstanding.”

At any rate the initial report that an attacker killed the US soldier, a translator and three Afghan soldiers may not be the case, and it seems that the Afghans may have killed the US soldier, and themselves been killed by other US soldiers. Accidental gunbattles are nothing new in the Afghan War, but if this was actually an “on purpose” insider attack by a whole unit, it could be yet another gamechanger in the endless war.

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.