US general assassinated in ‘green-on-blue’ shooting at Afghan army training base

A man in an Afghan Army uniform opened fire Tuesday at a military base, killing a U.S. general officer and wounding 15 people, among them a German brigadier general and a number of Americans troops

Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, said that the assailant fired into a group of international soldiers at the Marshal Fahim National Defense University at Camp Qargha, a base west of Kabul, and was subsequently killed.

Another 15 people, roughly half of them Americans, were wounded. Among the wounded were a German brigadier general, two Afghan generals and an Afghan officer, whose rank the Afghan Defense Ministry did not provide.

The attack occurred during a site visit to the university by coalition members.

Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said a “terrorist in an army uniform” opened fire on both local and international troops.

The Qargha shooting comes as so-called “insider attacks” —  incidents in which Afghan security turn on their NATO partners — largely dropped last year. In 2013, there were 16 deaths in 10 separate attacks. In 2012, such attacks killed 53 coalition troops in 38 separate attacks.

…

Such “insider attacks” are sometimes claimed by the Taliban insurgency as proof of their infiltration. Others are attributed to personal disputes or resentment by Afghans who have soured on the continued international presence in their country more than a dozen years after the fall of the Taliban’s ultra-conservative Islamic regime.

Foreign aid workers, contractors, journalists and other civilians in Afghanistan are increasingly becoming targets of violence as the U.S.-led military coalition continues a withdrawal to be complete by the end of the year.

Full article: US general assassinated in ‘green-on-blue’ shooting at Afghan army training base (Fox News)