Anti-U.S. protests linger after deadly weekend of "insider attacks" in Afghanistan
Afghan police stand by burning tires during a protest near the U.S. Camp Phoenix, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sept. 17, 2012. / AP
Updated at 5:00 a.m. Eastern
(CBS/AP) - There were violence protests at a U.S. military outpost near the Afghan capital Monday after a weekend of bloodshed that left at least six American troops dead - four of them in the latest apparent "insider attack" by Afghan defense forces.
Kabul police chief Lt. Gen. Ayoub Salangi tells CBS News that about 1,000 demonstrators gathered in front of Camp Phoenix, a U.S. base on the outskirts of Kabul. The crowd, the latest rallying against an anti-Islamic movie apparently produced inside the U.S., chanted anti-U.S. slogans and began throwing stones at the U.S. base.
The air was thick with smoke on the Jalalabad road - a main thoroughfare into the city center where the crowd burned shipping containers and tires. Sirens wailed as fire engines rushed to the scene. At least one police vehicle was burned by the mob, according Daoud Amin, the Kabul provincial police chief.
Salangi says shots were fired by some members of the protest group, but that nobody was known to have been wounded by the gunfire. The police never opened fire, he says. Salangi says about 40 police officers received minor injuries in the stone throwing before the crowd dispersed.
Violent anti-U.S. protests continue in Pakistan
Panetta: Anti-U.S. violence leveling off
What's behind the violent anti-U.S. protests?
The scuffles in the Afghan capital came after a bloody weekend that saw a renewal of the so-called "insider attacks" on Western forces by their Afghan partners, and an apparently misguided NATO airstrike on an alleged militant target which left at least eight Afghan women and girls dead.
The bloodshed started Friday, when 15 insurgents disguised in U.S. Army uniforms killed two Marines, wounded nine other people and destroyed six Harrier fighter jets at Camp Bastion, a major coalition base in the southern Helmand province, military officials said.
Four American and two British troops were then killed in two separate insider attacks. On Saturday, a gunman in the uniform of a government-backed militia force shot dead two British soldiers in Helmand district in the southwest.
On Sunday, an Afghan police officer turned his gun on NATO troops at a remote checkpoint in the southern province of Zabul, killing four American service members, according to Afghan and international officials.
4 U.S. troops killed in Afghan "insider attack"
2 U.K. troops killed in Afghan "insider attack"
NATO tackles "insider attacks" with empathy push
This year has seen a sharp rise in insider attacks in Afghanistan. A total of 36 incidents have left 51 coalition troops dead, including 32 Americans. Friday's attack on Camp Bastion is not counted in this tally, as there is no indication the insurgents who were dressed in U.S. uniforms had help from Afghan security personnel at the sprawling base.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta speaks at the Japanese Defense Ministry in Tokyo, Sept. 17, 2012.
/ APU.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday that while he is very concerned about rogue Afghan troops and police turning their guns on U.S. and allied forces, he sees the insider attacks as the "last gasp" of a Taliban insurgency that has not been able to regain lost ground.
The defense chief's comments followed unusually sharp criticism from Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dempsey on Sunday called the escalating insider attacks a "very serious threat" to the Afghanistan campaign.
Dempsey vowed that something has to change in order to address the escalating problem, and he suggested that the Afghans need to take the matter as seriously as the Americans do.
The spike in insider attacks is souring the relationship between NATO troops and the Afghan forces that they are training and fighting alongside. But military and defense leaders have insisted that these attacks are not hampering the war effort, and that it will not impact the plans to have combat troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
The U.S. is expected to announce in the next day or two that it has completed the withdrawal of the 33,000 troops ordered into the fight as part of a military surge three years ago.
With those troops gone, the U.S. will have 68,000 forces on the ground in Afghanistan.
"We're all seized with (the) problem," said Dempsey, after discussing the issue at a meeting in Romania with NATO officials. "You can't whitewash it. We can't convince ourselves that we just have to work harder to get through it. Something has to change."
There have been new measures implemented, including greater cooperation between U.S. and Afghan intelligence units to try and root out disgruntled Afghan forces before they turn their guns on their partners. All Afghan troops are to be re-screened and vetted for potential signs of a grudge against Western troops, and a joint NATO-Afghan campaign to educate both sides of cultural differences was announced last week.
Thus far, the measures taken seem to be having little measurable effect on the daunting challenge posed by the insider attacks.
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We have nothing to "win", and they have nothing to lose, therefore in the end they will win.
England could not defeat the Afghan people, neither could the Soviets, it is the height of arrogance that Bush decided that we could do that which no western empire had done before.
Ironic that the US created Al Qaeda in order to destabilize Afghanistan, and give, as Zbigniew Brzezinski said when interviewed,
"Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war..."
Funny, we are now the ones mired in our third Vietnam-like pointless, lie-based debacle.
For those bagger who have been suckered in b their pimps, this also from Brzezinski...
" Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?
B: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?
Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.
B: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn't a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries."
This from the a-holes that caused today's problems to begin with.
Argue with one of your own, baggers!!!