Afghan soldier kills 2 U.S. soldiers, Taliban beheads 17 civilians

From the AP:

Insurgents attacked a large party in a Taliban-controlled area of southern Afghanistan [in the Musa Qala district of Helmand province] and beheaded 17 people, officials said on Monday...

In other violence, two American soldiers were shot and killed by one of their Afghan colleagues in the east, military officials said. Afghan officials [claimed the killings were] accidental... NATO would not comment on the question of whether the killings were intentional or accidental...

A spokesman for the Afghan army claimed that Afghan soldier fell and accidentally discharged his weapon. But the AP, in a separate report, notes that "a U.S. Defense Department official said the Afghan soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the Americans, and that this seemed to indicate that it was an intentional act. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an investigation is under way, said he was unaware of any indications that the shooting was accidental."

U.S. Marines have battled the Taliban for years in Musa Qala [the aforementioned district where the 17 civilians were beheaded], but the insurgent group still wields in significant power in the area as international forces across the country draw down and hand over control to Afghan forces. Helmand province, where Musa Qala is located, is one of the areas seeing the largest reduction in U.S. troops...

The Ap, in a separate report, notes: "Helmand was the centerpiece of President Barack Obama's surge, when he ordered 33,000 additional U.S troops to Afghanistan to help the military with a counterinsurgency plan. That plan hoped to turn the tide in Helmand and neighboring Kandahar and establish the governmental institutions that would allow the Afghan government to take control of the Taliban heartland.

"Two years later, however, Helmand is still so lawless that Afghan government officials couldn't even go to the Taliban-controlled town where the beheadings were reported. Many Afghans in the south, the Taliban's birthplace and the home of the country's Pashtun speaking population, are leery of a government that many consider to be corrupt and ineffective. The problem is compounded by a rapid reduction in American and international aid, which fueled most of the growth in the south in recent years."

Many Afghans and international observers have expressed concerns that the Taliban will try to re-impose strict Islamic justice as international forces withdraw. Under the Taliban, all music and film was banned as un-Islamic...

As the drawdown progresses, there has been a surge in attacks by Afghan forces against their international allies...

Insider attacks have been a problem for the U.S.-led military coalition for years, but it has exploded recently into a crisis. There have been at least 33 such attacks so far this year, killing 42 coalition members, mostly Americans. Last year there were 21 attacks, killing 35; and in 2010 there were 11 attacks with 20 deaths. The latest killings brought the number of Americans killed by allied forces this month to 12.