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[font size=4]NATO personnel recalled from Afghan ministries after killing of 2 Americans[/font]
Washington Post | By Kevin Sieff | Updated: Saturday, February 25, 5:02 PM
STRINGER/REUTERS - Afghan protesters shout anti-U.S. slogans during a protest in Kunduz province. Four people were shot dead by Afghan security forces on Saturday as protests over the burnings of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base erupted for a fifth day, with an attempt by demonstrators to bombard a U.N. compound in the north.
KABUL — The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Saturday recalled all NATO personnel working in Afghan ministries in the Kabul area — a bold and potentially divisive response to the killing of two American service members by an Afghan security official in the country’s fortified Interior Ministry earlier in the day.
Marine Gen. John R. Allen’s directive comes five days after U.S. military personnel burned a pile of Korans at the largest military base in Afghanistan in an apparently inadvertent act that set off violent protests across the country. More than 25 Afghans have died in those demonstrations, and four NATO soldiers have been killed by men wearing Afghan security uniforms since Thursday, when the Taliban urged Afghan soldiers and police to turn their weapons on their Western counterparts.
The week’s events have exposed a core vulnerability of the Obama administration’s strategy for winding down the decade-long Afghan war: a fraying trust between two presumed allies who must depend on each other to keep the insurgency at bay.
Although mutual suspicions have been building for some time, the Koran burnings followed by the apparent revenge killings of U.S. military personnel will make it much harder for both sides to agree in the coming weeks on the specific terms and timetable of NATO’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
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Washington Post | By Kevin Sieff | Updated: Saturday, February 25, 5:02 PM
STRINGER/REUTERS - Afghan protesters shout anti-U.S. slogans during a protest in Kunduz province. Four people were shot dead by Afghan security forces on Saturday as protests over the burnings of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base erupted for a fifth day, with an attempt by demonstrators to bombard a U.N. compound in the north.
KABUL — The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan on Saturday recalled all NATO personnel working in Afghan ministries in the Kabul area — a bold and potentially divisive response to the killing of two American service members by an Afghan security official in the country’s fortified Interior Ministry earlier in the day.
Marine Gen. John R. Allen’s directive comes five days after U.S. military personnel burned a pile of Korans at the largest military base in Afghanistan in an apparently inadvertent act that set off violent protests across the country. More than 25 Afghans have died in those demonstrations, and four NATO soldiers have been killed by men wearing Afghan security uniforms since Thursday, when the Taliban urged Afghan soldiers and police to turn their weapons on their Western counterparts.
The week’s events have exposed a core vulnerability of the Obama administration’s strategy for winding down the decade-long Afghan war: a fraying trust between two presumed allies who must depend on each other to keep the insurgency at bay.
Although mutual suspicions have been building for some time, the Koran burnings followed by the apparent revenge killings of U.S. military personnel will make it much harder for both sides to agree in the coming weeks on the specific terms and timetable of NATO’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
MORE
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