Associated Press: US Military Under-Reporting Insider Attacks in Afghanistan

The military is under-reporting the number of times that Afghan soldiers and police open fire on American and other foreign troops. The US-led coalition routinely reports each time an American or other foreign soldier is killed by an Afghan in uniform. But the AP has learned it does not report insider attacks in which the Afghan wounds, or misses, his US or allied target. It also doesn't report the wounding of troops who were attacked alongside those who were killed. Such attacks reveal a level of mistrust and ill will between the US-led coalition and its Afghan counterparts in an increasingly unpopular war. The US and its military partners are working more closely with Afghan troops in preparation for handing off security responsibility to them by the end of 2014. In recent weeks an Afghan soldier opened fire on a group of American soldiers but missed the group entirely. The Americans quickly shot him to death. Not a word about this was reported by the International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, as the coalition is formally known. It was disclosed to the AP by a US official who was granted anonymity in order to give a fuller picture of the "insider" problem. ISAF also said nothing about last week's attack in which two Afghan policemen in Kandahar province fired on US soldiers, wounding two. Reporters learned of it from Afghan officials and from US officials in Washington. The two Afghan policemen were shot to death by the Americans present. Last Wednesday, an attack that killed a US army special forces soldier, staff sergeant Andrew T Brittonmihalo, 25, of Simi Valley, California, also wounded three other American soldiers.