A U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter crew chief scans below near Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, on June 9. (Capt. Brian Harris/ Army)
On September 5, a spokesman for the NATO’s Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan, Lieutenant colonel Martin O’Donnell, announced that U.S. Army Sergeant major Timothy Bolyard, 42 years old, was killed in an insider attack at a military base in Afghanistan.
In details, an Afghan policeman opened fire at U.S. service members inside Camp Maiwand, an Afghan military base in the eastern province of Logar, at the noon of September 3. Sgt. Maj. Bolyard was killed and another U.S. service member was injured during the assault.
According to Col. O’Donnell, the attacker fled after the assault. However, Afghan security forces manged to capture him later. The Resolute Support spokesman said that the investigation is still ongoing and declined to reveal the motive behind the attack.
Two months ago, Corporal Joseph Maciel was killed and two other U.S. service members were injured in a similar insider attack by a rogue soldier of the Afghan National Army (ANA).
The new incident indicates that insider attacks, known as “green on blue” attacks in which Afghan service members attack NATO troops, are still a serious threat, despite that their number declined during the last few years.
To me these seem likely to be personal. Guy there can probably kill whoever he sets his sites on, yet he picks this guy. Reminds me of grunts killing officers in Nam. Heard a few stories seemed credible, their, field officer’s, casualty rates were sky hi, but still hard to believe.
Things get ugly far from home, overly gung ho officer, it becomes a matter of life or death, yeah maybe. After all giving your life to protect an opium crop seems a waste.
It seems a reasonable analogy, however I would not put my money on it. The hatred against Nato, against the US especially must be immense, all the killer needs is even the smallest allegiance towards the Taliban or even ISIS, remembering these people are poorly educated, extremely tribal + of course believe in all that martyr good stuff ……. or of course the Yanks bombed the killer’s kids in a school, bus or hospital.
If you had that sort of seething hatred going and a reasonably secure position why just kill one and injure another? Card playing expression, “go big or stay home”. The guys around would know, yeah everybody hated that fucker, he should have left Amid alone. Somebody knows, I just wonder about these events.