US lawmaker seeks probe into insider attacks in Afghanistan

Washington: An influential top American lawmaker today sought an investigation into the recent jump in insiders attack in Afghanistan by the country’s top intelligence agency. With as many as 40 attacks this year on US and NATO troops by members of Afghan security forces, Congressman Peter King, Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security, called on the Director of National Intelligence to lead an investigation of the killings and urged the Defence Department to disclose all details of the attacks. [caption id=“attachment_425399” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Reuters[/caption] King wrote separate letters to the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and the Defence Secretary Leon Panetta in this regard, copies of which were released to the press. “It is reported that as many as forty such attacks have taken place against Coalition Forces by members of the Afghan security forces and local nationals employed by our forces this year, causing at least 13 percent of Coalition casualties, including 11 men killed in the last two weeks alone,” King wrote to Panetta. “We cannot address this growing crisis for our mission in Afghanistan unless we first understand how many such incidents have taken place, who has perpetrated them, and which Coalition units have suffered these attacks, and under what circumstances,” he wrote. In his letter to Clapper, King said he is reliably informed that reporting on counterintelligence problems in Afghan units advised and trained by US forces has been suppressed, out of a misplaced fear of reflecting badly upon those units’ American advisers and trainers. “Such concerns must now plainly come second to addressing a growing crisis for our mission in Afghanistan, posed by green on blue shootings,” he wrote. “The military need not undertake this task alone. The Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are well-placed to assist the Defence Intelligence Agency and the service components’ intelligence branches in conducting such a counterintelligence survey”, King said. PTI