(ZUMAPRESS.com)
(
)
In July 2010, Shir Ahmad, an Afghan security guard at a coalition base, started making threatening comments, saying he wanted to kill US troops.
His employer, Afghan-owned Tundra Security, a subsidiary of Canadian military contractor Tundra Group, fired him and recommended he not be rehired. But according to an investigation by Rep. Howard McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Tundra officials failed to pass that recommendation up the chain of command; nor was Ahmad added to any military watch list.
Tundra rehired Ahmad on March 9, 2011, without a background check. Ten days later, while working security at Forward Operating Base Frontenac in Southern Afghanistan, Ahmad picked up an AK-47 and fired into a group of soldiers who were cleaning their weapons.
He killed two — Cpl. Donald R. Mickler Jr., 29, of Ohio, and Pfc. Rudy A. Acosta, 19, of California.
They were only two of the 75 soldiers killed since 2007 by “green on blue” attacks executed by our supposed Afghan allies, aided and abetted by wishful thinking on the part of the Obama administration and lax security measures in Afghanistan. Despite these murders — including six in the last two weeks — officials plan to do nothing to take guns away from Afghans stationed with our troops.
After the Ahmad attack, the Pentagon told Congress that it had improved the screening process for Afghan forces — requiring all troops undergo a criminal-background check, including fingerprinting, and that they produce two letters from their village elders vouching for their character.
McKeon calls the system “tragically weak.” There’s no central Afghan database to check the fingerprints against, for one, and nothing to determine if the recommendations come from an elder in cahoots with the Taliban. McKeon introduced a bill Thursday that would require US bases to be guarded only by American troops, not foreign nationals or private security firms.
“We must recognize that the existing processes failed to identify 42 attackers in 2007 to 2011,” he said.
Things have only gotten worse since Korans were burned outside a prison in Bagram on Feb. 20 because they contained covert messages from terrorist detainees.
Three days later, a uniformed Afghan soldier shot and murdered in cold blood two American soldiers — Army Sgt. Joshua Born, 25, and Army Cpl. Timothy Conrad, 22 — at a forward operating base near Jalalabad.
On Feb. 25, an Afghan policeman working inside the Afghan Ministry of Interior — one of the most secure buildings in the country — pulled a gun, walked up behind two unarmed American officers and shot them both in the back of the head.
The slain American advisers — Air Force Lt. Col. John Loftis, 44, and Army Maj. Robert Marchanti, 48 — were helping train and “mentor” the Afghan national police.
They had removed their body armor and sidearms as a gesture of respect for their Afghan partners.
The burly Loftis, described as a “gentle giant,” had been so friendly with the Afghan people that he had adopted the name Esan, Pashto for “generous.”
“He trusted them,” his mother said.
The still-at-large assailant was said to be loyal to the Taliban. He recently had been rehired by the Afghan government after returning from a Pakistani madrassa.
Then, on Thursday, two Afghan soldiers stationed inside a US military base in Kandahar climbed a sentry tower and opened fire on troops, killing two more American soldiers.
The Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police are “riddled with Taliban,” said a senior US Army intelligence official, “and these guys are just itching for a chance to kill an infidel for Allah.”
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, points out that the United States not only pays Afghan trainees and security guards about $240 a month, but also arms them with pistols and rifles.
“We’re mostly paying them to frag us,” he said.
At the same time Afghan guards are fully loaded in the base, US commanders require troops to disarm when they return from patrol.
“If an Afghan is going to go postal, he’s got the advantage [because] everybody else is essentially disarmed for a bit,” the official said.
Evicting armed Afghan nationals from coalition bases would be the obvious solution to the problem.
But training and standing up a national security force in Afghanistan is the linchpin of the Obama administration’s withdrawal strategy. Troop pullout is planned for 2014, but the Pentagon is already reducing its troop presence by 30,000 at the end of the summer. Many of the remaining soldiers will switch from fighting to training and advising Afghan forces, exposing more to insider attacks.
President Obama has insisted on using private security contractors for base security as a way to limit the size of the US military footprint in Afghanistan. Hiring local Afghans to protect soldiers obviates the need to deploy 20,000 more troops or move existing troops out of combat roles. Already, Afghan troops and police outnumber US soldiers 258,000 to about 100,000.
The Pentagon says there’s no change in strategy. Tundra, for instance, still provides security at nine military installations.
In a letter to McKeon’s committee, the father of the slain soldier Acosta implored the military to use only US forces to provide security at bases.
But that is not likely to happen.
In fact, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has ordered the Ministry of Interior to take over the role of providing security. Starting March 20, 2013, the United States has agreed to allow Karzai’s new Interior arm, the Afghan Public Protection Force, to replace all private security contractors guarding US and NATO military bases.
The APPF will start replacing all contractors escorting convoys by March 20 of this year.
“Complicating matters further,” McKeon said, “President Karzai has dictated that only Afghan nationals may be certified for employment as private security guards and has not permitted US citizen contractors.”
US intelligence sees insider attacks only worsening, as the size of the Afghan security forces grows and the Taliban penetrate deeper into their ranks.
“Karzai is negotiating with the Taliban, along with our government, and everybody knows that we’re leaving,” said the senior Army intelligence official. “There’s not one reason for a local to not essentially side with the Taliban, either overtly or covertly.”
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”