A U.S. service member has been killed, and two wounded, in an apparent insider attack, in Tarin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province, southern Afghanistan.
Mujib Mashal and Thomas Gibbons-Neff, at the New York Times, have the most detailed reporting.
An American military officer familiar with the attack said it had occurred at a small base in Tarinkot, a town in Uruzgan Province, where roughly 150 soldiers who are stationed in Kandahar often rotate through to train Afghan soldiers. The outpost is one of several in the country where the Army’s Security Force Assistance Brigade is stationed. The unit — tasked with training and assisting the Afghan National Army — is one of the leading elements of the Trump administration’s new strategy in Afghanistan.
The death, the third American military fatality in Afghanistan this year, was a reminder that United States soldiers remain in the line of fire, although the war is now largely fought by Afghan security forces backed by American air power.
Since a policy change by the U.S. military, last summer, that notification of deaths in Afghanistan would be delayed, newspaper reporting on U.S. deaths is generally not very informative. Official statements on the deaths say pretty much nothing at all.
Here are some extracts from the newspaper coverage.
But a police officer told news agency AFP the shooting happened at the airport in Tarinkot, the capital of Uruzgan province - although they were unable to confirm this detail with any Nato officials.
The Taliban have also released a statement, saying an Afghan soldier opened fire on US soldiers in Uruzgan.
The attack comes a year after three US special forces soldiers were shot deadby one of their Afghan colleagues. It was claimed by the Taliban.
However, these kind of attacks - where local troops turn on international forces and often referred to as "green on blue" incidents - are not necessarily the work of militants infiltrating the security forces.
Cultural misunderstandings and combat stress have also been named as the cause in previous attacks.
US service member killed in 'insider attack' in Afghanistan, BBC
The last insider attack occurred in August 2017. In that incident, a Romanian NATO soldier was injured. The last insider attack that resulted in a US casualty occurred two months earlier, in June of last year.
Incidents like these have decreased in frequency in recent years as US and NATO forces have increased vetting of Afghan troops and taken precautionary measures, such as assigning protection forces known as "guardian angels" to advisory units.
US service member killed in Afghanistan in apparent insider attack, Ryan Browne and Veronica Stracqualursi, CNN
Last year, the United States added thousands of additional troops to its forces in Afghanistan, which are engaged in both training, and advising Afghan forces and conducting counterterrorist missions against Islamic State and other militant groups.
As in other areas of the war, Afghan units suffer more heavily than coalition units from insider attacks. A Pentagon report last month said there were 47 so-called “green-on-green” attacks, or incidents where Afghan soldiers turn on their own side, so far this year.
U.S. service member killed in apparent insider attack in Afghanistan, Reuters