Rogue Afghan ‘shot British soldiers amid corruption feud’
Five British soldiers were shot by a renegade Afghan policeman as a bloody local vendetta played itself out, a coroner’s court has heard.
A rogue Afghan policeman murdered five British soldiers in a village where a “blood feud” was being played out between local police and the Taliban, an inquest has heard.
Warrant Officer Class 1 Darren Chant, 40, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, and Guardsman Jimmy Major, 18, from the Grenadier Guards, died alongside Corporal Steven Boote, 22, and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, 24, from the Royal Military Police.
The men had taken off their body armour and were drinking tea with Afghan National Police colleagues in the courtyard of a police compound in Helmand when one of the Afghans opened fire.
The man, known only as Gulbuddin, suddenly opened fire from the roof of checkpoint Blue 25 in the Nad-e-Ali district of Helmand province, killing the five unarmed soldiers and wounding six more British troops and two fellow Afghan policemen.
The inquest in Trowbridge heard how the soldiers had been ordered to the checkpoint amid allegations that a corrupt local police commander was using his powers to pursue a vendetta against a local Taliban leader.
You had this checkpoint commander playing out a blood feud against a local Taliban commander and it was being played out amongst this village. The people were caught in the crossfire. Lt Col Charles Walker
Lt Col Charles Walker, commander of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, said: “One of the local villager boys was a local Taliban commander and within the previous year he had been responsible in another area of the Nad-e-Ali district for appropriating land which was under the title of a police commander.
“That police commander, through his own contacts understood who was responsible, he had moved or engineered it that he ended up being the checkpoint commander at Blue 25 and from there he was trying through policing to get at the Taliban commander.
“I think there was an element of blood feud, which is a cultural practice.”
He added: “It became clear to me that there wasn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the villagers. They weren’t naturally aligned to the insurgents – they just wanted some security and they weren’t getting it from the Afghan National Police.
“One of the principle grievances that came clear was that the police at checkpoint Blue 25, there were a number of allegations about corrupt policing, improper policing and heavy-handedness, such that the way the police were behaving was to encourage the villagers to support the Taliban,” the officer said.
“The Taliban were able to support that, saying: ‘We can do a better job than the police’.
“You had this checkpoint commander playing out a blood feud against a local Taliban commander and it was being played out amongst this village. The people were caught in the crossfire.”
Taliban claims
The inquest has heard how the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming the killer was an insurgent who had infiltrated the Afghan National Police with the aim of targeting foreign troops.
But military sources dispute that, saying the Taliban are known to have made similar claims in other attacks by “rogue” Afghans. NATO says there is no clear evidence of a successful campaign of infiltration by Taliban fighters.
Read more: British fatalities in Afghanistan
Since the five men died in November 2009, at least 40 other NATO troops and support staff have been killed by rogue members of the Afghan security forces, or by insurgents posing as soldiers or police officers.
Among them were Major James Joshua Bowman, from Wiltshire, Lieutenant Neal Turkington, from Craigavon, and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun, from Nepal, all from 1st Battalion The Royal Gurkha Rifles, who were killed when an Afghan soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade into their command centre in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand province.
Timeline - Deadly attacks by "rogue" Afghans or insurgents posing as members of the security forces since November 2009
May 13 - Afghan National Civil Order Police officer shoots dead two members of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in southern Helmand
April 27 - Afghan Air Force pilot kills eight US troops and an American contractor after opening fire in the military wing of Kabul's main airport
April 18 - Gunman in Afghan army uniform opens fire inside the Afghan Defence Ministry in Kabul, killing two employees
April 16 - Suicide bomber in Afghan army uniform kills five foreign and four Afghan soldiers in Jalalabad
April 15 - Suicide bomber in police uniform kills provincial police chief Khan Mohammad Mujahid at police headquarters in Kandahar city
April 4 - Afghan policeman shoots dead two American soldiers in Faryab province
Feb 18 - Two German soldiers shot dead by a gunman in Afghan army uniform in Baghlan province
Nov 30, 2010 - Trainee Afghan border policeman shoots dead six US soldiers in Nangarhar province
Aug 25, 2010 - Two Spanish police and an interpreter shot dead by Afghan policeman during weapons training exercise in Badghis province
July 13, 2010 - Major James Joshua Bowman, Lieutenant Neal Turkington and Corporal Arjun Purja Pun from Royal Gurkha Rifles killed by rogue Afghan soldier in Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand
July 20, 2010 - Two US security contractors killed by Afghan soldier at shooting range near Mazar-i-Sharif
Dec 29, 2009 - Afghan soldier kills one US serviceman at military base in Badghis province
Following the deaths of the five soldiers, the Afghan authorities began tighter vetting of recruits, but rapid recruitment into the Afghan security forces, which will be boosted to at least 305,000 by 2011, has raised fears the Taliban could infiltrate more sympathisers into ranks of the Afghan police and army.
Conservative MP Adam Holloway, a former officer in the Grenadier Guards and a regular visitor to Afghanistan, told Channel 4 News he doubted whether many of the attacks by regenade Afghans could be attributed to the insurgents, blaming the country’s “chaotic” political situation and deep-seated corruption.
He said: “I’m sure that in some parts of the country there are some units that would be recognisable as paramilitary police. But out there in the Pashtun belt many people that we call police are very far from it.
“When I went to Helmand in 2006, just before the Brits arrived, opium was being transported in police cars.
“It’s not surprising that you would have, on occasion, a situation when an Afghan policeman would attack NATO forces. The fighting is always worse in areas of drug cultivation and sometimes the local police are involved in the drug trade.
“Of course the Taliban will try to take credit and I am sure that occasionally that would be the scenario. But there will be all kinds of different reasons and motivations for these attacks.
“For the people who are at the top of the Afghan police in the majority of provinces it is a business undertaking, and therefore much of our attempts to train and vet people are coming at it from the wrong end. What we need is much, much better leadership.”