2 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan killed in apparent insider attack

A U.S. soldier stands guard during a training session for Afghan National Police at their combat outpost in the Jalrez Valley in Afghanistan's Wardak Province, Sept. 19, 2009. / AP

KABUL, Afghanistan The U.S. military says two of its service members have been killed in an apparent insider attack by an Afghan police officer.

The U.S. force in Afghanistan says in a statement that a man wearing an Afghan police uniform turned his weapon on U.S. service members in Uruzgan province. U.S. forces spokeswoman Maj. Lori Hodge says the attack happened before noon on Thursday. She declined to give further details and said it was not clear yet if the attacker was an enlisted police officer or an insurgent disguised as a police officer.

The statement says the attack is being investigated. A NATO spokesperson told CBS News the attacker was still at large later Thursday. The official would not comment on the specifics of current joint force operations in the area where the attack occurred, but said they had "by and large returned to our normal tempo" across the country after temporary restrictions were lifted last month.

At least 53 foreign troops have been killed by Afghan forces already this year - 33 of them Americans. Thursday's was the first such attack on NATO forces since September, and the first since the Afghan government launched a large-scale push to re-screen thousands of security forces, trying to identify infiltrators or those who might not be considered secure.

• 6 Afghan police killed in insider attack
• Video: "60 Minutes" on Afghan insider attacks
• Allen: Insider attacks "signature" of Afghan war

Thursday's attack came just a day after the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Mohammad Omar, released a statement saying insurgents would increase the number of insider attacks against coalition and Afghan forces.

In an emailed statement congratulating Muslims as they prepare to celebrate the Eid al-Adha holiday, Mullah Mohammad Omar urged "every brave Afghan in the ranks of the foreign forces and their Afghan hirelings ... to strike them."

"Jihadist activities inside the circle of the state militias are the most effective stratagem. Its dimension will see further expansion, organization and efficiency," he said. "Increase your efforts to expand the area of infiltration in the ranks of the enemy."

Play Video

"60 Minutes" on Afghan insider attacks

The surge in insider attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops ahead of a planned handover to the Afghans in 2014. It has further undermined public support for the 11-year war in NATO countries.

The attacks have not been limited to members of the NATO-led international coalition. More than 50 Afghan members of the government's security forces also have died this in attacks by their own colleagues.

Afghan officials said last weekend that an officer and a cook had attacked their police colleagues in an assault coordinated with insurgent fighters that left six dead in the country's south.

[19hs46]

I do not know what the training of the Afgani Police or Army consists of, how long it is, nothing about it at all. All we see on the TV bites are the recruits getting hand held weapons training. I would hope it has gone much deeper than that but we are not privy to anything more. If the US is/was expecting to be successful the training regimen needed to be at least a 12 week "boot camp/basic training" that included as much history and nationalistic teaching as military training. If at least a part of the "tribal allegiance" could be replaced with "national allegiance",the hope or at least the prospect of freedom could be installed in the recruits, a civilian population confident enough to look to their Police and Army to hold back the radicals and extremists, maybe, just maybe, a viable state would perhaps have had a chance. At the very least we might have been better able to determine the chances for success and either pressed ahead or retired from the field.

I know, we are dealing with thousands of years of tradition and leaders must rise from the citizenery. There would be martyrs, change would be slow and painful and enough of the population must desire that change.

As a young Marine I was witness to abortive "nation building" in Vietnam. My youngest son will soon deploy to Afghanistan and I fear he may well witness the same basic thing I saw.

[CO897]

Bless our warriors. But, you can't create freedom where people reject it.

[woknroll]

Insane way of doing business. The generals should be discussing ways of handling the training and mingling in other ways that are safer. Most soldiers I gather would rather be killed in battle than to be put in harm's way like this.

[woknroll]

Insane way of doing business. The generals should be discussing ways of handling the training and mingling in other ways that are safer. Most soldiers I gather would rather be killed in battle than to be put in harm's way like this.

[quincytodd]

Two more lives lost for nothing, unless one considers the right of Western firms(British and American bourgeoisie) to exploit Afghanistan's vast underground mineral resources. The outside world should have let the Communists win there some 30 years ago and that could have been done without Russian intervention, too! We need to get out just like the Russians did in 1989!