Afghan National Employed by U.S. Attacks Americans, Killing One

By HEIDI VOGT, Associated Press September 26, 2011

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – An Afghan employed by the U.S. government killed one American and wounded another in an attack on a CIA office in Kabul, officials said Monday.

The shooting Sunday evening — the third high-profile attack in the past two weeks in the Afghan capital — is the latest in a growing number of attacks this year by Afghans working for international forces. Some assailants have turned out to be Taliban sleeper agents, while others have been motivated by private grievances.

Gunfire was first heard sometime after 8 p.m. local time around the former Ariana Hotel, a building that ex-U.S. intelligence officials said is the CIA station in Kabul. The spy agency occupied the heavily secured building just blocks from the Afghan presidential palace in late 2001 after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban.

The U.S. Embassy said an Afghan employee of the complex shot dead an American citizen and wounded another before being killed. “The motivation for the attack is still under investigation,” the embassy said in a statement.

Embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall declined to comment on what the targeted annex was used for, citing security reasons. Sundwall said the Afghan employee was not authorized to carry a weapon, and it was not clear how the man was able to get a gun into the secured compound.

The embassy did not provide information on the U.S. citizen killed in the attack, and said the American wounded in the shooting was taken to a military hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.