KABUL — A veteran Afghan military pilot said to be distressed over his personal finances opened fire at the Kabul airport after an argument Wednesday, killing eight U.S. troops and an American civilian contractor.
Those killed were trainers and advisers for the nascent Afghan air force.
This and other incidents of Afghans turning against their coalition partners seem to reflect growing anti-foreigner sentiment independent of the Taliban. Afghans are increasingly tired of the nearly decade-long war and think their lives have not improved despite billions of dollars in international aid.
The Taliban, which is currently staging its opening salvos of the spring fighting season, boasted that the gunman in Wednesday’s airport attack was a militant impersonating an army officer.
This claim did not seem credible, however.
Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the gunman was an officer who had served as a pilot in the Afghan military for the past 20 years. The gunman — identified as Ahmad Gul, 48, of Tarakhail district in Kabul province — died in an exchange of fire that followed his attack.
The gunman’s brother insisted he was not a Taliban sympathizer.
“He was under economic pressures, and recently he sold his house. He was not in a normal frame of mind because of these pressures,” said the brother, Dr. Mohammad Hassan Sahibi. “He was going through a very difficult period of time in his life.
“He served his country for years,” Sahibi told Tolo, a private television station in Kabul. “He loved his people and his country. He had no link with Taliban or al-Qaeda.”
The shooting took place at 10:25 a.m. at Kabul’s airport. The gunman opened fire at a meeting in an operations room at the Afghan Air Corps following an argument with foreigners, Afghan defense officials said. It was unclear what the argument was about.
Separately, two other NATO service members were killed Wednesday — one by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan and another in an insurgent attack in the east. So far this month, 45 foreign troops have died in Afghanistan — at least 40 of them American.
The coalition death toll in April of last year was 33.
