…the number of Western military personnel killed by Afghan troops or police between May 2007 and May 2011, according to a classified report quoted in Friday’s New York Times. The report said the killings represent “a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat” and that NATO efforts to paint such killings as isolated “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest.” NATO – which refuses to release a tally of its troops killed by its Afghan allies – disputed the report’s grim findings. An Afghan army soldier shot and killed four French troops in eastern Afghanistan Friday, leading French President Nicolas Sarkozy to suspend all French training of Afghan forces there and threatening to pull out entirely.
