KABUL, Afghanistan — Another suspected insider attack in Afghanistan cost the lives of a foreign soldier and a civilian contractor, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said Sunday.
The attack took place on Saturday, just two days after Pentagon officials confirmed that joint operations between American and Afghan forces were returning to normal. The ISAF statement said there were also casualties in the attack among Afghan national army forces, but did not give further details.
In keeping with standard practice, ISAF did not identify the nationality of the coalition victims and also did not say exactly where the attack took place.
If confirmed as an insider attack, it would bring to 53 the number of coalition members killed in such attacks this year, compared to only 35 in all of 2011.
ISAF said a joint assessment of the attack by the Afghan and NATO militaries was under way.
A senior American military officer said recently that only a fourth of the insider attacks could definitely be linked to insurgent infiltration of the Afghan security forces, and another fourth were judged to have been caused by personal disputes. The rest, however, usually resulted in the death of the perpetrator and it was unclear what the cause was.
Taliban insurgents routinely claim credit for such attacks, saying the infiltrator intended to be killed in the attack.
The Afghan military has stepped up its screening of recruits, and has dismissed hundreds in recent months because of suspicions about their identity or past activities.
In addition, the American military announced that it was suspending all joint operations below the battalion level without advance approval at the highest command levels. That suspension remains in place, but approvals are taking place rapidly so that the rate of joint operations has been returning to close to normal.
In an apparently unrelated incident on Friday, Taliban insurgents attacked what ISAF called a “security meeting” in Ghazni Province between American special operations troops and Afghans, and injured an Afghan civilian with machine gun fire.
“The Afghan and coalition troops treated and stabilized the man at the location, and fought off the attack,” ISAF said in a statement released Sunday.
The attack took place on Saturday, just two days after Pentagon officials confirmed that joint operations between American and Afghan forces were returning to normal. The ISAF statement said there were also casualties in the attack among Afghan national army forces, but did not give further details.
In keeping with standard practice, ISAF did not identify the nationality of the coalition victims and also did not say exactly where the attack took place.
If confirmed as an insider attack, it would bring to 53 the number of coalition members killed in such attacks this year, compared to only 35 in all of 2011.
ISAF said a joint assessment of the attack by the Afghan and NATO militaries was under way.
A senior American military officer said recently that only a fourth of the insider attacks could definitely be linked to insurgent infiltration of the Afghan security forces, and another fourth were judged to have been caused by personal disputes. The rest, however, usually resulted in the death of the perpetrator and it was unclear what the cause was.
Taliban insurgents routinely claim credit for such attacks, saying the infiltrator intended to be killed in the attack.
The Afghan military has stepped up its screening of recruits, and has dismissed hundreds in recent months because of suspicions about their identity or past activities.
In addition, the American military announced that it was suspending all joint operations below the battalion level without advance approval at the highest command levels. That suspension remains in place, but approvals are taking place rapidly so that the rate of joint operations has been returning to close to normal.
In an apparently unrelated incident on Friday, Taliban insurgents attacked what ISAF called a “security meeting” in Ghazni Province between American special operations troops and Afghans, and injured an Afghan civilian with machine gun fire.
“The Afghan and coalition troops treated and stabilized the man at the location, and fought off the attack,” ISAF said in a statement released Sunday.