KABUL – A gunman who opened fire at an air force training
centre in Kabul, leaving eight US troops and an American contractor
dead, appeared to be acting alone, NATO said Saturday.
The Afghan ex-pilot involved was shot during the incident on Wednesday
and found dead at a different location in the building, after the worst
attack of its kind in almost a decade of war.
It was not known what triggered the shoot-out. The Pentagon has said
the dead were mostly senior US Air Force officers, including four Air
Force majors and a lieutenant colonel.
"At this point in the investigation, it appears that the gunman was
acting alone. Beyond that, no Taliban connection with the gunman has
been discovered," said a NATO release.
"However, the investigation is still ongoing, and we have not conclusively ruled out that possibility," it said.
The US air trainers' deaths raise fresh questions over the massive
NATO-led effort to expand and train Afghanistan's military and police
so they can take control of security when foreign combat operations end
in 2014.
It was clear how eight armed officers came to die in the incident.
"Preliminary findings of this investigation indicate that the NATO
trainers who were killed were armed with weapons and ammunition," said
the statement.
Taliban militants have tried to infiltrate the ranks of the Afghan army
and police to carry out attacks against international forces from
within, a matter of huge concern for both Afghanistan and its NATO-led
military backers.
There have been incidents where Afghan army or police recruits have opened fire on NATO troops and caused casualties.
However the Air Force attacker's motives are not yet known, nor was it clear who killed him.
"Initial ballistics analysis and post-event imagery indicate that the
alleged gunman, who appeared to be acting alone, was severely wounded
prior to departing the room where the initial attack took place," NATO
said.
The initial findings show that the the gunman "appeared to be carrying
two weapons. The gunman was later found dead at a different location
within the building," it added.
The attacker was a 45-year-old former pilot who had been working as an
air force administrator, Colonel Mohammed Bahadur Raeeskhail, the
Afghan air force's media relations chief said earlier.
An Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the gunman
was from a well-respected Kabul family and that the shooting was the
result of a disagreement, not terrorism.
The Taliban claimed responsibility in a text message to AFP, but are known routinely to exaggerate their claims.
There are around 130,000 international troops serving in Afghanistan,
the bulk of them from the United States, although Afghan forces are in
control of security in Kabul. AFP
