You're reading: Afghanistan: Taliban level food warehouse for US

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — An Afghan police officer and cook poisoned their colleagues at a checkpoint in an assault coordinated with insurgent fighters that left six dead in the country's south, officials said Saturday.

It was the latest in a
string of attacks from inside the Afghan army and police that are
threatening to undermine both the partnership with international troops —
which have been the target of many attacks — and the morale of Afghan
forces, who have suffered equally heavy casualties from such strikes.

The
police officer and the cook worked with outside insurgents in the
assault, which hit police manning a checkpoint in the Gereskh district
of Helmand province, the governor’s office said in a statement.

They
poisoned two of the officers and then the militants attacked from
outside, killing the remaining four officers, provincial spokesman Ahmad
Zirak said. He did not say how the officers were poisoned. The police
officer was captured as he fled, but the cook escaped and remains at
large, Zirak added.

The insurgent gunmen escaped by motorcycle with weapons and ammunition, the governor’s statement said.

A
recent upsurge in the number of insider attacks on coalition troops by
Afghan soldiers or police — or insurgents disguised in their uniforms —
has further undermined public support for the war in the West. So far
this year, at least 52 foreign troops — about half of them Americans —
have been killed in insider attacks.

The Afghan government has not
provided statistics on the number of its forces killed in insider
attacks. However, U.S. military statistics obtained by The Associated
Press show at least 53 members of the Afghan security forces had been
killed by the end of August.

Meanwhile, a Taliban attack elsewhere
in Helmand killed two district community council members, while
Taliban-fired rocket-propelled grenades destroyed a warehouse full of
food destined for the main U.S. base in Afghanistan.

Insurgents
ambushed the council members while they were driving to a tribal meeting
in the volatile Sangin district, the governor’s office said in its
statement, adding that the attackers escaped and police are pursuing
them.

The attack against the council members is a reminder of the
other worrying trend in insurgent tactics this year — a shift toward
more targeted killings of those affiliated with the government. The
United Nations has recorded a sharp increase in such killings in the
first six months of 2012 as compared with the same period of 2011.

In
the warehouse attack, insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades at a
compound used by military contractor Supreme Group to store food and
other supplies destined for Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in the
country. A warehouse inside the compound caught fire in the assault and
burned through the night.

“The local fire brigade attended the
scene and brought the fire under control, but the warehouse itself and
all contents were destroyed,” Victoria Frost, a spokeswoman for Supreme
Group in Dubai, wrote in an email. She said no one was injured and staff
at the site did not have to evacuate.

The fire could still be
seen burning Saturday morning, said Mohammad Asif, the deputy
administrator for Bagram district, where the compound is located. He
said the Supreme compound encompasses about five hectares (12 acres).

Frost said the fire was contained much earlier.

“As
with any major fire, there are some areas still smoldering but there is
no current danger to any of the staff or the other buildings within the
compound,” she said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in
an email that the fire at the Supreme Group compound destroyed a “large
stock of food meant for U.S. troops.”

Frost did not say how much
material was destroyed though she did say it was “primarily food
supplies,” adding that the company was working to make up the loss with
inventory from other warehouses.