Police 'hunt Afghan suspect' in Kabul killings

Feb 27, 2012 |

Kabul

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Police are hunting for an Afghan intelligence official suspected of shooting dead two US officers at the interior ministry in Kabul amid violent anti-US protests, a government source said on Sunday.

"A police officer who worked for the intelligence department of the ministry of interior has disappeared -- officials believe he is the suspect, and they are looking for him," an official in the ministry said.

NATO yesterday pulled all its staff out of Afghan government ministries after the shooting, which came as anti-US protests raged for a fifth day over the burning of Korans at a US-run military base.

Local television quoted a source as naming the suspect as a 25-year-old who had studied in Pakistan and joined the ministry as a driver in 2007 before being promoted. He had signed into the ministry on Saturday before disappearing.

The two US officers were found dead in their office with gunshot wounds. Taliban insurgents have claimed responsibility for the shooting, saying it was in revenge for the Quran burning, an incident that forced US President Barack Obama to apologise to the Afghan people.

NATO, which has a 130,000-strong US-led military force fighting the Taliban insurgency, has advisers throughout the Afghan government but commanding officer General John Allen ordered them all withdrawn after the shooting.

The explosion of outrage over the burning of the Quran at Bagram airbase north of Kabul has plunged relations between Afghans and their Western allies to an all time low, analysts say.

"It has never been as bad as this and it could be a turning point" in the West's 10-year mission in the war-torn country, said Martine van Bijlert of the Afghanistan Analysts' Network.

"There has been a very serious case of undermined trust and it really depends on whether it goes further downhill from here or the two sides get a chance to repair the damage," she said.

At the heart of the escalating crisis is fear over Afghanistan's future when US-led NATO forces end combat operations in the war against Taliban insurgents in 2014 and hand security responsibility to the Afghan government.

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