KABUL: A member of the Afghan army shot dead a British soldier, officials said yesterday, in the latest “insider attack” to undermine the US-led mission training Afghans to take over from NATO troops next year.
The British member of an engineering regiment was killed when the Afghan opened fire on Monday at a base in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province in the insurgency-ridden south.
Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai began a four-day US visit yesterday.
Foreign combat soldiers are due to exit Afghanistan by the end of next year, more than a decade after a US-led invasion brought down the Taleban regime in 2001, but the country remains wracked by violence.
US officials have reportedly prepared plans for between 3,000 and 9,000 troops to remain to prevent Al-Qaeda militants from re-establishing themselves and to ensure Taleban fighters cannot take the capital Kabul.
But pressure is growing on Obama to end the war rapidly due to deep war weariness in the United States, tightening military budgets and anger over “insider attacks” by Afghan troops on the NATO-led soldiers.
“If Mr. Obama cannot find a way to go to zero troops, he should approve only the minimum number needed,” The New York Times said in an editorial this week that called Karzai’s government “profoundly corrupt.”
Obama will host talks with Karzai at the White House on Friday, the day after the Afghan president meets Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
US officials have said a decision could be made during Karzai’s visit on how many troops stay on in Afghanistan after 2014 — a figure that could determine whether the country tips into a widely feared civil war.
The talks will also include equipping and strengthening Afghan forces, efforts to negotiate peace with Taleban-led insurgents and a long-term security agreement with the United States, Karzai’s office said.
The number of foreign soldiers battling the insurgency in Afghanistan has already fallen to 100,000 from about 150,000. Of those, 66,000 are US troops, down from a maximum of about 100,000.
Afghan army and police are due to take over complete security responsibility from NATO troops by the end of 2014, but there are major concerns they will not be able to face down the country’s many warring factions.
More than 60 foreign soldiers were killed in 2012 in “insider attacks” that have bred bitter mistrust and threatened to derail the training of Afghan security forces.
UK soldier killed in Afghan attack
