Allen to review Afghan attacks on NATO troops - Marine Corps News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Marine Corps Times

Allen to review Afghan attacks on NATO troops

President Obama is personally concerned about the spike in “inside-the-wire” attacks on U.S. troops by Afghan soldiers, and senior NATO officials in Brussels have ordered the war’s top commander in Kabul, Marine Gen. John Allen, to review efforts to prevent the killings.

“We tasked Gen. Allen to report back on the steps that are being taken,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. “And they are moving aggressively to do a better review of those who are going into the Afghan army … better background checks in order to ensure that these incidents are cut back.”

Military officials recently acknowledged that at least 46 U.S. and NATO troops have been killed since 2007 when Afghan soldiers and other locals mounted attacks inside forward operating bases. Those attacks have become more frequent over the past two years after U.S. officials stepped up efforts to train the Afghan forces.

Panetta said the attacks are “sporadic” rather than “endemic.”

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Panetta about the attacks and cited an internal military report that identified a deep distrust between U.S. troops and the Afghans they are assigned to train.

“I am so disturbed by the frequency of these attacks. It raises questions about our vetting process. It raises concerns among our troops when they are risking their lives to train and assist the Afghan troops only to have some … turn on them,” Collins said. “Unless steps are taken to stop these attacks on our troops by the Afghan security personal, that level of trust that is so necessary for a successful strategy is going to be extraordinarily difficult to achieve.”

These concerns have reached the highest levels at the White House, said Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m well aware of this issue. I recently briefed the president on it, who shares your concern,” Dempsey told Collins.

Dempsey noted that investigations show the majority of killings stemmed from isolated or personal problems. Links to the Taliban or the insurgency were found on only 11 of the 46 killings, Dempsey said. “It doesn’t make it any better, but it makes it more understandable,” he said.

Dempsey also noted that Afghan troops are killing each other on military bases at a far higher rate than they are killing U.S. and NATO troops.

Dempsey said Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently authorized Afghan security forces to embed counterintelligence agents in Afghan army units in an effort to root out potentially dangerous or subversive troops among the local forces.

Panetta said NATO allies raised the issue in early February at a meeting in Brussels. It’s become a sensitive political issue since an Afghan soldier killed four French troops in January. The French government announced shortly afterward that they would accelerate the withdrawal of the 3,600 French troops fighting in Afghanistan.

On Feb. 3, a U.S. soldier shot and killed an Afghan security guard on a forward operating base in Sari Pul province in Northern Afghanistan. Local Afghan officials said they believe the soldier thought he was acting in self-defense.

Dempsey called the deaths are tragic and said that while military officials are taking steps to prevent them, “we are not going to get it to zero. That is the nature of this kind of conflict.”