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july 2010
Murder of troops, including one senior officer, inside Helmand patrol base deals severe blow to government's exit strategy
The government's Afghanistan exit strategy suffered a severe setback yesterday after three British troops, including a senior army officer, were murdered by an Afghan colleague inside a patrol base in Helmand province.
The soldiers, from the Gurkha Rifles, were killed by a rogue member of the Afghan national army in a "suspected premeditated attack", the Ministry of Defence said. One was a company commander in charge of a British base in Helmand, another was a British-born junior officer and the third a Nepalese Gurkha. The Afghan, who fled the scene, is understood to have shot one man in his bed and killed the other two by firing a rocket-propelled grenade into a control room.
The killings are the latest blow to British efforts to train the Afghan security forces, which is key to government plans to withdraw UK troops by 2015 and raises questions about the extent of Taliban infiltration of the Afghan army.
Last night the Taliban claimed the Afghan soldier had joined its insurgency. On its website, Afghan Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said that after opening fire on the servicemen the rogue soldier fled to a Taliban-protected safe place.
David Cameron called the attack "appalling" but said the government would not be diverted from the "absolutely essential" task of training an effective Afghan army. "We must not let this change our strategy of building up the army, building up the government of Afghanistan."
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said the attack would not affect the government's "resolve to see our mission through and train Afghan security forces so they can look after their own security and our forces one day can come home".
He added in a speech to the Chatham House thinktank: "We all know there is no such thing as a risk-free war, a casualty-free war or a fatality-free war."
Map showing Nahr-e-Saraj in central Helmand where the attack took place.
Five thousand British troops are currently partnering members of the Afghan army. They are engaged in an ambitious project, now under renewed scrutiny, to help train Afghan army recruits whose numbers are due to be increased from about 100,000 to 134,000 by the start of next year. They are also engaged in helping train the Afghan police force, described recently by one senior British defence official as a "disaster". The soldiers, from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, died after being targeted at a joint patrol base in Nahr-e-Saraj, north of Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital. Four other troops were injured in the attack.
The attack took place around 2.45am yesterday. The soldier fled the base, sparking a major manhunt by UK and Afghan troops.
It is the third time a Afghan security forces member has opened fire on British troops. In 2008 two British soldiers were shot in the leg and last November five British soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan policeman who was never caught.
The government has made it clear that training the Afghan army is central to British plans in Afghanistan. Earlier this year a British infantry commander, Lt Col Nick Ilic, explained: "It is absolutely fundamental we get this right. This is our exit strategy … for us to train the Afghan national army to the right standard and quality so they can take on the fight when they're ready."
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, apologised to the UK after yesterday's killings. US and Nato commander General David Petraeus said: "I echo the condolences and sentiments offered by President Karzai.
"This is a combined, joint mission – Afghan and alliance troopers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder against the Taliban and other extremists."1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles were posted to the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province in April and had begun pushing out into what had been Taliban-controlled territory on joint patrols with the Afghan national army.
The Gurkha unit's home is Shorncliffe barracks in Folkestone, Kent, although most of the men are recruited in Nepal. Their officers are both British and Gurkha.
Following past incidents, it has become standard practice in joint ANA/Nato compounds for British soldiers to carry sidearms and ensure that one of their patrol members remains on guard with his rifle. The latest killings will reinforce the distrust felt by some British troops of their Afghan counterparts.
In a separate incident a Royal Marine was shot dead in Afghanistan yesterday, the MoD said last night. The Marine, from 40 Commando Royal Marines serving as part of Combined Force Sangin, died while on foot patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand. Next of kin have been informed.
Daily Mail
Why I did it, by the Afghan traitor who killed three British soldiers
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz23ZRuFP6A
By KATHERINE FAULKNER
UPDATED: 06:50 GMT, 16 July 2010
A man claiming to be the rogue Afghan soldier who murdered three British troops said last night that he had killed them because he was angry with the conduct of UK forces in Afghanistan.
He said he had carried out the murders because the British had 'killed civilians', including children, in his home country.
The man, who claimed his name was Talib Hussein, said he had acted alone and that he had not been in contact with the Taliban at the time of the attack.
But he said that he had joined the Taliban since, and that they were now sheltering him.
Talib Hussein is suspected of killing Major James Bowman, 34, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, 26, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun in a gun and rocket-propelled grenade attack on Tuesday.
Hussein, who the three had previously considered a trusted colleague, is now being hunted by elite Special Forces troops.
Last night the man claiming to be Hussein contacted the BBC's Kabul bureau via a Taliban intermediary.
Journalist Dawood Azami, of the BBC World Service, was given a mobile phone number to call by the Taliban. The phone was then passed to a man who claimed to be 21-year-old Talib Hussein from the central Ghazni province of Afghanistan.
During the ten-minute interview the man accused British troops in Helmand province of killing civilians, including children.
When challenged over civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban, the man described the insurgents as 'Mujahideen' fighting for their country.
He claimed that British soldiers were not there to secure and rebuild Afghanistan - and accused the Army of plotting suicide-attacks and deliberate killings of Afghan civilians. He added that the shooting of British soldiers had been his own idea, and that he had had no contact with the Taliban, Iran or Pakistan beforehand.
Corporal Arjun Purja Pun (left) and Lieutenant Neal Turkington were also killed by the gunman, who has gone on the run
Hussein is believed to have carried out the brutal attack at Patrol Base Three, a fortress near Bababi in central Helmand, using a machine gun and a rocket-propelled grenade.
He is believed to have shot dead Major Bowman, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, as he slept in a tent. He then launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the base used by Lt Turkington, of Portadown, Northern Ireland, and Cpl Pun, a senior Nepalese Gurkha soldier. Hussein had been living, eating and fighting alongside the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles prior to the attack.
The BBC said it 'could not be certain' that the man that spoke to them was Hussein but said its reporter had questioned him about his name, age, ethnicity, home village and the duration of his military service and that all the details had been correct. The Taliban had already claimed they were sheltering the renegade soldier who shot the British troops at a base in Helmand province.
Responding to the claims in a statement, the Ministry of Defence said: 'While we cannot comment on the legitimacy of this individual's claims to be the suspect responsible for this cowardly attack, it is ridiculous to suggest that we are engaged in suicide attacks or are deliberately killing civilians.
'Insurgents and those who are against the coalition mission in Afghanistan routinely make false and exaggerated claims.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz23ZRgDjjq
on the same incident , july 2011
Three British soldiers were murdered by an Afghan colleague weeks after a row over a water bottle led to the vandalism of a Gurkha religious shrine, an inquest has heard.
The deaths of Major James “Josh” Bowman, 34, Lt Neal Turkington, 26, and Cpl Arjun Purja Pun, 33, of 1st Bn The Royal Gurkha Rifles, also came a few weeks after a Gurkha accidentally shot dead an Afghan soldier.
Sgt Talib Hussein used a Minimi light machine gun, rocket-propelled grenade and M16 rifle to shoot the British soldiers at 2am as they slept or worked in the operations room. Four soldiers were also wounded.
The inquest heard that an Afghan soldier had been disciplined after he had been caught by a Gurkha officer taking a bottle of cold water from a fridge.
Later that night, a makeshift Hindu temple built by Gurkhas was vandalised, the inquest heard.
In a second incident during an operation to capture a Taliban commander, a force of Afghan soldiers suddenly appeared and a Gurkha accidentally shot one.
While there was “friction” between the British and Afghan troops sharing Patrol Base Three, a fortress in Helmand province, following the incidents, it did not appear to be sufficient motive for Hussein to carry out the murders in July last year.
The matter is still under investigation. But Lt Col Gerald Strickland, the Gurkha commanding officer, said the accident was “what happens in war” and “there were no recriminations at all”.
When the officer arrived at the base after the murders, the Afghan commander immediately told him that he had passed Hussein in the darkness who told him “look out, the Taliban are attacking the ISAF section of the camp”. He then fled the base in the dark.
Lt Col Strickland told the inquest in Trowbridge, Wilts, he did not believe Hussein had been recruited by the insurgents as he was from the Hazara ethnic group who are hostile towards the Taliban.
In a phone call allegedly made by Hussein to the BBC Kabul bureau the soldier claimed he carried out the attack because British soldiers were killing civilians. He denied being in the Taliban but admitted he had been in Iran for two years before joining the Afghan National Army.
Lt Col Strickland, questioned over whether he thought Hussein could have been a Taliban infiltrator, said he was a “rogue soldier” who “ran amok”.
The incident came seven months after the so-called Blue 25 attack in which an Afghan National Police officer killed five British soldiers in their Helmand base.
The inquest continues.
Murder of troops, including one senior officer, inside Helmand patrol base deals severe blow to government's exit strategy
The government's Afghanistan exit strategy suffered a severe setback yesterday after three British troops, including a senior army officer, were murdered by an Afghan colleague inside a patrol base in Helmand province.
The soldiers, from the Gurkha Rifles, were killed by a rogue member of the Afghan national army in a "suspected premeditated attack", the Ministry of Defence said. One was a company commander in charge of a British base in Helmand, another was a British-born junior officer and the third a Nepalese Gurkha. The Afghan, who fled the scene, is understood to have shot one man in his bed and killed the other two by firing a rocket-propelled grenade into a control room.
The killings are the latest blow to British efforts to train the Afghan security forces, which is key to government plans to withdraw UK troops by 2015 and raises questions about the extent of Taliban infiltration of the Afghan army.
Last night the Taliban claimed the Afghan soldier had joined its insurgency. On its website, Afghan Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said that after opening fire on the servicemen the rogue soldier fled to a Taliban-protected safe place.
David Cameron called the attack "appalling" but said the government would not be diverted from the "absolutely essential" task of training an effective Afghan army. "We must not let this change our strategy of building up the army, building up the government of Afghanistan."
Liam Fox, the defence secretary, said the attack would not affect the government's "resolve to see our mission through and train Afghan security forces so they can look after their own security and our forces one day can come home".
He added in a speech to the Chatham House thinktank: "We all know there is no such thing as a risk-free war, a casualty-free war or a fatality-free war."
Map showing Nahr-e-Saraj in central Helmand where the attack took place.
Five thousand British troops are currently partnering members of the Afghan army. They are engaged in an ambitious project, now under renewed scrutiny, to help train Afghan army recruits whose numbers are due to be increased from about 100,000 to 134,000 by the start of next year. They are also engaged in helping train the Afghan police force, described recently by one senior British defence official as a "disaster". The soldiers, from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, died after being targeted at a joint patrol base in Nahr-e-Saraj, north of Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital. Four other troops were injured in the attack.
The attack took place around 2.45am yesterday. The soldier fled the base, sparking a major manhunt by UK and Afghan troops.
It is the third time a Afghan security forces member has opened fire on British troops. In 2008 two British soldiers were shot in the leg and last November five British soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan policeman who was never caught.
The government has made it clear that training the Afghan army is central to British plans in Afghanistan. Earlier this year a British infantry commander, Lt Col Nick Ilic, explained: "It is absolutely fundamental we get this right. This is our exit strategy … for us to train the Afghan national army to the right standard and quality so they can take on the fight when they're ready."
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, apologised to the UK after yesterday's killings. US and Nato commander General David Petraeus said: "I echo the condolences and sentiments offered by President Karzai.
"This is a combined, joint mission – Afghan and alliance troopers fighting shoulder-to-shoulder against the Taliban and other extremists."1st Battalion, Royal Gurkha Rifles were posted to the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province in April and had begun pushing out into what had been Taliban-controlled territory on joint patrols with the Afghan national army.
The Gurkha unit's home is Shorncliffe barracks in Folkestone, Kent, although most of the men are recruited in Nepal. Their officers are both British and Gurkha.
Following past incidents, it has become standard practice in joint ANA/Nato compounds for British soldiers to carry sidearms and ensure that one of their patrol members remains on guard with his rifle. The latest killings will reinforce the distrust felt by some British troops of their Afghan counterparts.
In a separate incident a Royal Marine was shot dead in Afghanistan yesterday, the MoD said last night. The Marine, from 40 Commando Royal Marines serving as part of Combined Force Sangin, died while on foot patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand. Next of kin have been informed.
Daily Mail
Why I did it, by the Afghan traitor who killed three British soldiers
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz23ZRuFP6A
By KATHERINE FAULKNER
UPDATED: 06:50 GMT, 16 July 2010
A man claiming to be the rogue Afghan soldier who murdered three British troops said last night that he had killed them because he was angry with the conduct of UK forces in Afghanistan.
He said he had carried out the murders because the British had 'killed civilians', including children, in his home country.
The man, who claimed his name was Talib Hussein, said he had acted alone and that he had not been in contact with the Taliban at the time of the attack.
But he said that he had joined the Taliban since, and that they were now sheltering him.
Talib Hussein is suspected of killing Major James Bowman, 34, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, 26, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun in a gun and rocket-propelled grenade attack on Tuesday.
Hussein, who the three had previously considered a trusted colleague, is now being hunted by elite Special Forces troops.
Last night the man claiming to be Hussein contacted the BBC's Kabul bureau via a Taliban intermediary.
Journalist Dawood Azami, of the BBC World Service, was given a mobile phone number to call by the Taliban. The phone was then passed to a man who claimed to be 21-year-old Talib Hussein from the central Ghazni province of Afghanistan.
During the ten-minute interview the man accused British troops in Helmand province of killing civilians, including children.
When challenged over civilian deaths at the hands of the Taliban, the man described the insurgents as 'Mujahideen' fighting for their country.
He claimed that British soldiers were not there to secure and rebuild Afghanistan - and accused the Army of plotting suicide-attacks and deliberate killings of Afghan civilians. He added that the shooting of British soldiers had been his own idea, and that he had had no contact with the Taliban, Iran or Pakistan beforehand.
Corporal Arjun Purja Pun (left) and Lieutenant Neal Turkington were also killed by the gunman, who has gone on the run
Hussein is believed to have carried out the brutal attack at Patrol Base Three, a fortress near Bababi in central Helmand, using a machine gun and a rocket-propelled grenade.
He is believed to have shot dead Major Bowman, from Salisbury, Wiltshire, as he slept in a tent. He then launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the base used by Lt Turkington, of Portadown, Northern Ireland, and Cpl Pun, a senior Nepalese Gurkha soldier. Hussein had been living, eating and fighting alongside the 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles prior to the attack.
The BBC said it 'could not be certain' that the man that spoke to them was Hussein but said its reporter had questioned him about his name, age, ethnicity, home village and the duration of his military service and that all the details had been correct. The Taliban had already claimed they were sheltering the renegade soldier who shot the British troops at a base in Helmand province.
Responding to the claims in a statement, the Ministry of Defence said: 'While we cannot comment on the legitimacy of this individual's claims to be the suspect responsible for this cowardly attack, it is ridiculous to suggest that we are engaged in suicide attacks or are deliberately killing civilians.
'Insurgents and those who are against the coalition mission in Afghanistan routinely make false and exaggerated claims.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz23ZRgDjjq
on the same incident , july 2011
Three British soldiers were murdered by an Afghan colleague weeks after a row over a water bottle led to the vandalism of a Gurkha religious shrine, an inquest has heard.
The deaths of Major James “Josh” Bowman, 34, Lt Neal Turkington, 26, and Cpl Arjun Purja Pun, 33, of 1st Bn The Royal Gurkha Rifles, also came a few weeks after a Gurkha accidentally shot dead an Afghan soldier.
Sgt Talib Hussein used a Minimi light machine gun, rocket-propelled grenade and M16 rifle to shoot the British soldiers at 2am as they slept or worked in the operations room. Four soldiers were also wounded.
The inquest heard that an Afghan soldier had been disciplined after he had been caught by a Gurkha officer taking a bottle of cold water from a fridge.
Later that night, a makeshift Hindu temple built by Gurkhas was vandalised, the inquest heard.
In a second incident during an operation to capture a Taliban commander, a force of Afghan soldiers suddenly appeared and a Gurkha accidentally shot one.
While there was “friction” between the British and Afghan troops sharing Patrol Base Three, a fortress in Helmand province, following the incidents, it did not appear to be sufficient motive for Hussein to carry out the murders in July last year.
The matter is still under investigation. But Lt Col Gerald Strickland, the Gurkha commanding officer, said the accident was “what happens in war” and “there were no recriminations at all”.
When the officer arrived at the base after the murders, the Afghan commander immediately told him that he had passed Hussein in the darkness who told him “look out, the Taliban are attacking the ISAF section of the camp”. He then fled the base in the dark.
Lt Col Strickland told the inquest in Trowbridge, Wilts, he did not believe Hussein had been recruited by the insurgents as he was from the Hazara ethnic group who are hostile towards the Taliban.
In a phone call allegedly made by Hussein to the BBC Kabul bureau the soldier claimed he carried out the attack because British soldiers were killing civilians. He denied being in the Taliban but admitted he had been in Iran for two years before joining the Afghan National Army.
Lt Col Strickland, questioned over whether he thought Hussein could have been a Taliban infiltrator, said he was a “rogue soldier” who “ran amok”.
The incident came seven months after the so-called Blue 25 attack in which an Afghan National Police officer killed five British soldiers in their Helmand base.
The inquest continues.
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