Two US Army Officers Gunned Down in Afghan Interior Ministry

As protests against the burning of several Qurans at a U.S. Military base outside of Kabul raged on for a fifth day, a gunman killed two Americans inside the heavily guarded Afghan Interior Ministry.

Sitting at their desks inside the government building where they serve as advisers to the Afghan security forces the two U.S. Army officers were shot and killed, NBC News reported.

“The assailant is unknown, and an aggressive search is under way to determine who is responsible,” Pentagon press secretary George Little said in Washington.

Gen. John Allen, the commander of NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said all NATO personnel were being recalled from Afghan ministries “for obvious force protection reasons.”

“We are investigating the crime and will pursue all leads to find the person responsible for this attack. The perpetrator of this attack is a coward whose actions will not go unanswered,” Allen said in a statement.

NATO confirmed that two service members were killed, but spokesman Lt. Col Jimmie Cummings said “initial reports say it was not a Western shooter.” He declined to provide further information.

“American and Afghan troops were present at the time of the shootout, but we are unsure who killed them,” a senior Afghan security source told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The Afghan Taliban took credit for the attack claiming that two of their fighters had entered the building in Kabul and killed four “high-ranking U.S. advisers,” according to NBC News. U.S. military officials confirmed only two deaths.

“Our suicide bomber Abdur Rahman along with another fighter managed to enter the interior ministry and open fire at the Americans. Before carrying out the suicide attack, Abdur Rahman told us on telephone that he had killed four high-ranking Americans. The second fighter successfully escaped the building and has joined his fighters now,” the Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said in a phone call to NBC from an undisclosed location.

He said it was revenge for the desecration of the holy Quran by the U.S. forces.

At least 28 people have been killed and hundreds wounded since Tuesday, when it was first revealed that Qurans and other religious materials were burned in a fire pit used to dispose of garbage at Bagram Air Field, a large U.S. base north of Kabul. Among those dead were two U.S. soldiers who were killed Thursday by one of their Afghan counterparts while a riot raged outside their base in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

President Obama and other U.S. officials apologized and said the burning of Qurans was a terrible mistake.

Taliban Leaders to be Released from Gitmo as Part of Peace Deal

According to sources familiar with talks in the US and in Afghanistan, a handful of high ranking Taliban figures including Mullah Khair Khowa, a former interior minister, and Noorullah Noori, a former governor in northern Afghanistan will be released from Guantanamo Bay as a part of a peace deal. Another part of the deal will have the Afghan insurgent group opening a political office for peace negotiations in Qatar.

The Taliban are also reportedly demanding the release of the former army commander Mullah Fazl Akhund. The Obama administration is considering formally handing him over to the custody of another country, possibly Qatar.

The Taliban are holding one American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, a 25-year-old sergeant captured in June 2009, but it is not clear whether his release is part of the negotiations.

“To take this step, the [Obama] administration have to have sufficient confidence that the Taliban are going to reciprocate,” said Vali Nasr, who was an Obama administration adviser on the Afghan peace process until last year. “It is going to be really risky. Guantanamo is a very sensitive issue politically.”

“If it had not happened then the idea of reconciliation would have been completely finished. The Qatar office is akin to the Taliban forming a Sinn Féin, a political wing to conduct negotiations,” Nasr said, but added: “The next phase will need concessions on both sides. This doesn’t mean we are now on autopilot to peace.”

Negotiations over the opening of a Taliban political office and the release of prisoners have been underway for more than a year in secret contacts in Germany and in the Gulf between US and Taliban officials, but have been continually held up by political obstacles.

It is not clear when the office will open, and there is also likely to be disagreement on the role of the Kabul government. A senior Afghan government official said the Karzai administration had accepted the creation of a Taliban office in Qatar only after demanding assurances from foreign powers that any peace process must be kept under the firm control of the Afghan government.

“If it is not led and owned by the Afghan government, it will fail,” the official said.

However, Tuesday’s Taliban statement said the group was only interested in talking to the “United States of America and their foreign allies,” Mujahid said.

Western diplomats hope the opening of an office in Qatar will also lessen Pakistan’s control of the Taliban. Pakistan plays host to most of the Taliban leadership, which it sees as an important bargaining counter in negotiations over the future of the region.