Afghan People Protesting against American Presence

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Afghan People Protesting against American Presence

A man in an Afghan army uniform on Monday killed two international service members inside a NATO base in southern Afghanistan in what seems to be another “green on blue” attack, that is an attack of the Afghan soldiers directed against their NATO colleagues, following the string of incidents that strained the ties between Afghans and Americans.
This kind of attacks have increased in numbers over the past year, and escalated after the incidental burning of the Quran, at the Bagram Air Base, which was followed by the killing of six international service members by their Afghan colleagues in revenge for the desecration of the Muslim holy book.
On Monday, the coalition in Afghanistan could offer few details about what happened, saying however that an individual wearing the Afghan army uniform turned his weapon against the NATO troops, causing them to return fire. The man is said to have been shot and killed.
According to the Pentagon data, there were 45 attacks by Afghans against NATO troops since 2007, 75% of them being reported over the past two years. According to the Wall Street Journal there is a possibility that the man who entered the base be an insurgent, who used the Afghan army uniform to get inside.
Afghan army uniforms can be purchased in the markets and the insurgents have used this tactic in the past. The base where the attack occurred is called Lashkar, and is lead by the British. British Defense Ministry said it was aware of the assault but refused to offer more details or to acknowledge whether the soldier was British or not.
One of the most brutal incidents that caused this kind of reaction on the part of the Afghan soldiers is the rampage of an American soldier, U.S. Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, who killed, two weeks ago, 16 Afghan civilians in three villages, many of the deceased women and children, after which he rounded their bodies up and torched them, then went back to the base and surrendered.
The tragedy strained the tension in Afghanistan even further, causing the president of the country, Hamid Karzai, to say that the incident was “not to be forgotten,” and the lawmakers of the Afghan parliament to urge that no accord with the Americans be signed unless Bales is put on trial on Afghan soil.
The soldier has already been extracted and taken to the Kansas pre-trial facility Fort Leavenworth, where he was charged on Friday with 17 counts of premeditated murder, six counts of attempted murder, and six counts of assault.
If found guilty of premeditated murder, Robert Bales, 39, father of two, could face the maximum penalty, the death penalty, dishonorably discharge from the armed forces, the demotion to the lowest enlisted grade, and forfeiture of the pay and allowances. The lowest penalty would be life imprisonment and the possibility of parole.
The United States on Sunday announced that it has paid $50,000 in compensation for each villager killed  and $11,000 for each one wounded in Afghanistan. The money was said to have come from the president Barack Obama and is seen as an attempt on the American side to improve relations with the Afghans.
While Bales is awaiting his first public hearing, which could happen on Afghan territory, considering that holding him in Fort Leavenworth does not mean that he would be put on trial in America, many Afghans, including people in the villages raided by Bales, say that there was more than one shooter in the villages.
Since the first time people in the villages spoke about the incident, they said that they had heard multiple shots and a helicopter, which compelled many to speculate that a military detail came after him, when they realized he was missing.
The United States army continues to assert that the man acted alone, and presented to the Afghan authorities a recording of a surveillance tape at the base, which showed him surrendering to the American troops at the base.
The payment made by the American administration was completed on Saturday through the Kandahar governor’s office. It is considered a rather large sum as compared to other compensation money offered on other occasion, which were of $2,000 for each death, and $1,000 for each wounded.
The amount the American administration paid is of $866,000 and is said by some American officials to reflect the devastating nature of the crime. The U.S. officials did not want to offer more details on the payment.

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