NATO: 2 service members killed in inside attack

[April 04, 2011]  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A person wearing an Afghan border police uniform shot dead two NATO service members Monday inside a compound in northern Afghanistan, the military alliance said.

NATO stressed that it was still investigating the incident in Faryab province. Authorities said the shooter fled the scene. The military coalition did not provide further details.

It was not immediately clear if the shooter was an Afghan police officer. There have been incidents of both Afghan security forces turning on their Western counterparts and of insurgents donning uniforms to infiltrate bases and attack from the inside.

The investigation was being undertaken along with Afghan authorities. Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said that the shooting occurred in the provincial capital of Maymana but declined to provide further details.

Turncoat attacks by Afghan police and soldiers have appeared to increase over the past 12 months as NATO and Afghan forces work more closely together. In some cases, such shootings have been a result of arguments that turned violent; in others, the Taliban has claimed that Afghan shooters were sleeper agents.

In the last such incident in January, an Afghan soldier approached two Italian soldiers who were cleaning their weapons and shot both of them dead before escaping from the base. One of the deadliest such shootings occurred in November when an Afghan border police officer opened fire on NATO troops during a training mission in eastern Nangarhar province, killing six NATO service members before he was shot dead.

The shooting came as protests erupted in Afghanistan again Monday against a Florida pastor's burning of the Quran, making four straight days of demonstrations -- some deadly -- against the destruction of Islam's holy book. At least 21 people have been killed in the past three days of protests across the country.

The violence was set off by anger over the March 20 burning of the Quran by a Florida church -- the same church whose pastor had threatened to do so last year on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, triggering worldwide outrage.

The Quran burning appears to have inflamed a simmering anti-foreigner sentiment in the country, where anger about civilian casualties and international contractors making fortunes off the long-running conflict have worn down the welcome for Western forces over more than nine years of fighting.

Monday's protest in eastern Laghman province briefly threatened turn into another melee as about 300 protesters brandished sticks and threw stones at police, who in turned started firing shots in the air, according to an Associated Press photographer at the scene.

The protest started in Alingar district and the shouting crowd moved toward the provincial capital of Mihtarlam, where they clashed with officers who wanted to keep them out of the city, said Gen. Abdul Aziz Gharanai, the provincial police chief.

However, the protesters dispersed as officers started firing warning shots and no one was wounded, Gharanai said. The AP photographer also heard no reports of serious injuries.

The violence started Friday when thousands of demonstrators in the previously peaceful northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif poured into the streets after Friday's Muslim prayer services and overran a U.N. compound, killing three U.N. staff members and four Nepalese guards.

Meanwhile, NATO also said one of its service members was killed Sunday in an insurgent attack in the east. NATO did not disclose other details or the nationality of the dead. The majority of the troops in the east are American.

The latest deaths makes a total of 104 NATO service members killed so far this year. In the same period of 2010, 129 NATO troops died.

[Associated Press; By HEIDI VOGT and RAHIM FAIEZ]

Rahmat Gul contributed to this report from Mihterlam, Afghanistan.

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