KABUL, Afghanistan — A female Afghan police sergeant shot and killed an American contractor in Kabul on Monday, police officials said, the first such shooting by a woman in a spate of insider attacks by Afghans against their foreign allies.
Afghan officials identified the attacker as Nargas, a 33-year-old female sergeant in the national police force who worked in the Interior Ministry’s legal and gender-equality department, and whose husband is also a member of the police force. She’s a mother of four with a clean record, officials said. The shooting was outside the police headquarters in a walled compound that houses the governor’s office, courts and a prison in the heart of the capital.
A police official said she was able to enter the compound armed because she was licensed to carry a weapon as a police officer.
A person at Kabul police headquarters, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, said the woman was immediately arrested. He said both U.S. and Afghan officials were questioning her, and described her condition as being distraught. Police said they did not believe the attack was related to terrorism and that the suspect had no known connections with insurgents.
The American victim was identified as Joseph Griffin, 49, of Mansfield, Ga., who had worked for DynCorp International as a police trainer since July 2011, according to a DynCorp spokesman, Ashley Burke. He was shot as he came out of a small shop, Kabul Governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa said.Reports differ on whether he was shot in the head or the chest. The woman refused to explain her motive for her attack, he said.
The fact that a woman was behind the assault shocked some Afghans.
“I was very shaken when I heard the news,” said Nasrullah Sadeqizada, an independent member of Parliament. “This is the first female to carry out such an attack. It is very surprising and sad,” he added, calling for more careful screening of all candidates, male and female, for the police force.
According to NATO, about 1,400 women were serving in the Afghan police force midyear with 350 in the army - still a very small proportion of the 350,000 in both services. Such professions are still generally frowned upon in this conservative society, but women have made significant gains in recent years, with most jobs and education opportunities opento them, at least by law if not always in practice.
This is in stark contrast to the repression they suffered under the former Taliban regime, which forced women to be virtual prisoners in their homes, and severely punished them for even small infractions of the draconian codes.
The NATO command said that while the investigation continued, there might be “some temporary, prudent measures put into place to reduce the exposure of our people.” But a NATO spokesman, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Lester T. Carroll, said the vital mission of training the Afghan police “remained unchanged.”
There have been more than 60 insider attacks this year against foreign military and civilian personnel. They represent another looming security issue as President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai prepare to meet early next year to discuss the pullout of NATO troops from Afghanistan by 2014 and the size and nature of a residual force the United States will keep in the country.
Insider attacks by Afghan soldiers or police have accelerated this year as NATO forces, due to mostly withdraw from the country by 2014, have speeded up efforts to train and advise Afghan security before the pullout.
The surge in such attacks is throwing doubt on the capability of the Afghan security forces to take over from international troops and has further undermined public support for the war in NATO countries.
It has also stoked suspicion among some NATO units of their Afghan counterparts, although others enjoy close working relations with Afghan military and police.
As such attacks mounted this year, U.S. officials in Kabul and Washington insisted they were “isolated incidents” and withheld details.
An Associated Press investigation earlier this month showed that at least 63 coalition troops - mostly Americans - had been killed and more than 85 wounded in at least 46 insider attacks. That’s an average of nearly one attack a week. In 2011, 21 insider attacks killed 35 coalition troops.
There have also been incidents of Taliban and other militants dressing in Afghan army and police uniforms to infiltrate NATO installations and attack foreigners.
In February, two U.S. soldiers died from an attack by an Afghan policeman at the Interior Ministry in Kabul. The attack forced NATO to temporarily pull out their advisers from a number of ministries and police units and revise procedures in dealing with Afghan counterparts.
More than 50 Afghan members of the government’s security forces also have died thisyear in attacks by their own colleagues. Taliban militants claim such attacks reflect a growing popular opposition to both foreign military presence and the Kabul government.
In the latest attack, the governor said Nargas, who like many Afghans goes by one name, had asked bystanders where the governor’s office was located before confronting the American.
The Afghan news station TOLO cited Afghan officials as saying that the woman, who had crossed multiple police checkpoints before she fired her gun, had graduated from the national police academy in 2008, in one of its first female classes.
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said she fired only one shot that struck the American. He died either on the way or just upon arrival at a hospital, the spokesman added, describing her act as a “huge crime.” He said the woman attempted to run away, pistol still in hand, after the shooting. But she was subdued by police.
She was taken into Afghan custody and Sediqi said she refused to answer questions after hours of interrogation aimed at determining her motives.
Nargas had worked with a human-rights department of the police for two years and had earlier been a refugee in Pakistan and Iran, Kabul Deputy Police Chief MohammadDaoud Amin said.
She could enter the compound armed because as a police officer, she was licensed to carry a pistol, Amin said. He said he did not know whether the killer and victim were acquainted.
“Her background is very clean. We don’t see that she had any connection with armed insurgent groups,” Sediqi said. He added that she aroused no suspicion because she frequently went back and forth on business between the compound and the Interior Ministry where she worked.
Canadian Brig. Gen. John C. Madower, another NATO command spokesman in Kabul, called the shooting “a very sad occasion” and said his “prayers are with the loved ones of the deceased.”
The killing came just hours after an Afghan policeman shot five of his colleagues at a checkpoint in northern Afghanistan late Monday. The attacker then stole his colleague’s weapons and fled to join the Taliban, said deputy provincial governor in Jawzjan province, Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani.
Separately, U.S. military officials were investigating the apparent suicide of a Navy SEAL commander in Afghanistan. A U.S. military official in Washington said Cmdr. Job W. Price, 42, of Pottstown, Pa., died Saturday of a gunshot wound to the head while supporting stability operations in Uruzganprovince. The official said the death “appears to be the result of a suicide.”
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the death is still under investigation.
The official said Price failed to show up for an appointment and was found when others went to check on him.
Price was from Virginia Beach, Va.-based SEAL Team 4, which is part of the mission to train Afghan local police to stave off the Taliban in remote parts of Afghanistan.
Price is survived by a wife and a daughter.
His body is to be returned to the United States early today.
Information for this article was contributed by Denis D. Gray, Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah, Kimberly Dozier and Pauline Jelinek of The Associated Press and by Rod Nordland and Jawad Sukhanyar of The New York Times.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/25/2012