Showing that the insurgency’s goal of attacking Afghan police is not shifting, a series of attacks on Afghan police have left at least 30 of them killed over the past 48 hours, with IED attacks targeting police in the Kunar Province today.
The largest single incident of the period came Wednesday, of course, when an insider attack hit the US-backed Afghan Local Police (ALP), with other members of the force poisoning and killing 17 of them before leaving, apparently to join the Taliban.
It wasn’t an isolated incident though, as a series of IEDs today killed eight in Kunar, while another insider attack among ALP forces saw two fresh recruits attacking and killing two others on their way to a checkpoint. Other bombings and shootings killed three others nationwide.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for each of the attacks, but it is often unclear whether insider attacks are really being carried out by Taliban infiltrators or simply discontented recruits. Either way, the poorly paying job of Afghan police officer keeps getting more dangerous, a fact that will surely continue to weigh on recruitment efforts.