Kandahar Killers Wore US Uniforms
Until the US Marines started a major offensive in Helmand today, the biggest story in Afghanistan was the murder last weekend of an Afghan police commander and eight of his officers by a group of 41 Afghans trained by US Special Forces and living on a NATO military base in Kandahar. According to the military, the Afghans were “security contractors,” though the Afghan government describes them as “guards of Special Forces.”
Killid Media Group*, one of Afghanistan’s largest media companies, reported this week on their news radio program that witnesses to the shooting saw the attackers storm into the provincial attorney’s office wearing US military uniforms and demand that the prosecutor release their colleague. The man was being held on charges of forgery related to auto theft.
“They were Afghans and wearing the uniform of American forces,” said prosecutor Hafizullah Khaliq Yar. It is unclear whether the 41 men wore actual US military uniforms or Afghan army uniforms that some in Afghanistan associate with soldiers who help the Americans.
Either way, instead of releasing the prisoner, Khaliq Yar called the police.
They cops arrived soon after, led by their commander, Matiullah Qati. As soon as Qati and his men showed up, a gun battle erupted, killing him and eight others and injuring a civilian.
President Hamid Karzai appointed a high-level commission to investigate the shootings, and all 41 men are now in custody, here in Kabul.
Afghans Interior Minister Mohammed Hanif Atmar, who will take part in the investigation, said that the attacks were planned and premeditated. “This was not accidental,” Atmar said. “They came with a plan, they came for fighting. This was a riot against government and law.”
*Full disclosure: I am a mentor for Killid print journalists and edit the English language portion of thier weekly magazine.
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Correct me if I am wrong but don’t insurgents often use the false flag strategy? Could this be a case of that. Who were they trying to free?
The man they were trying to free was one a member of whatever unit the 41 men were in. The US military has already confirmed that this group was indeed working for them before the incident occurred. What is unclear is exactly what capacity they were were working for the US military. I made some phone calls to US mil sources and either they didn’t know what kind of work these men did or they wouldn’t say.
[...] After this incident in Kandahar, where a group of US trained Afghans killed a police chief, the Minister of Interior is calling for an end to all of these quasi-police forces, though he did not mention the APPF specifically. [...]