An Afghan man employed by the U.S. government opened fire inside a CIA office in Kabul, killing an American and injuring a second. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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In the second major breach of embassy security in Kabul, Afghanistan, in two weeks, the attacker was himself shot dead and the injured U.S. citizen was taken to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
It was unclear if the U.S. citizens were victims of a rogue employee acting for insurgents or the escalation of an argument between the three.
U.S. embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said: ‘There was a shooting incident at an annex of the U.S. embassy in Kabul last night involving an Afghan employee who was killed.
‘The motivation for the attack is still under investigation at this time.’
He added that the Afghan employee was not authorised to carry a weapon and it was unknown how he had been able to get a gun into the secured compound.
The shooting happened at the Ariana hotel, just a few blocks away from the Presidential Palace and the U.S. embassy, and used by the Central Intelligence Agency as a Kabul base.
Kabul police chief Ayub Salangi said there had been an exchange of fire at the hotel, which he described as an ‘office’ for the CIA.
The hotel has been closed off and heavily guarded since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001.
Perhaps because of its proximity to the Presidential Palace, it was used by ruling regimes for years before that.
The attack comes in the same month insurgents took over an unfinished high-rise building near the city’s heavily guarded military, political and diplomatic heart and showered rockets down on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters.
That attack lasted 20 hours, and the U.S. has blamed it on the Haqqani network of militants, who were long based in Pakistan’s lawless frontier regions.
Washington accused Pakistan’s spy service the ISI of offering them support.
But senior Pakistani officials have hit back at the allegations, accusing the U.S. of trying to make Pakistan a scapegoat for its troubled war in Afghanistan.
The U.S. has given Pakistan billions of dollars in military and economic aid, but the relationship has been riven by mistrust.
