[MestaMachine]

NATO: Afghan officer fires on NATO troops, kills 9, (6 Americans)

Excerpt:

A veteran Afghan military officer gunned down six NATO service members and wounded five Afghan soldiers Wednesday after an argument at the Kabul airport, Afghan and coalition officials said.

It was the seventh incident so far this year in which members of the Afghan security forces, or insurgents impersonating them, have killed coalition soldiers or members of the Afghan security forces.

NATO did not disclose the nationalities of the troops killed pending notification of their families.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, but Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said the gunman was an Afghan military pilot who "opened fire on foreigners after an argument."

The pilot was killed in the morning shooting, which occurred at a facility used by the Afghan Air Force, Azimi said.

Azimi said the shooter was a military pilot of 20 years. "An argument happened between him and the foreigners and we have to investigate that."

An Afghan pilot who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the gunman was Ahmad Gul, a 50-year-old pilot from Tarakhail district of Kabul province.

In a statement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said, however, that the gunman was impersonating an army officer and that others at the facility helped him gain access. The gunman killed nine foreigners and five Afghan soldiers, he said. The Taliban often exaggerate the number of casualties caused by their attacks.

Taliban insurgents have stepped up their attacks on government and military installations across Afghanistan.

[MestaMachine]

6 more bodies in Mexican border pits; total at 183

Excerpt

A Mexican soldier guards the site of a mass grave where the bodies of nine people were found buried.

Security forces have unearthed six more bodies in a northeastern Mexican border state where a drug gang is believed to be kidnapping passengers from buses and hiding their victims in secret graves, authorities said Tuesday. A total of 183 bodies have been discovered in a month in 40 graves.

The horrific discoveries have intensified criticism that lawlessness reigns in Tamaulipas state, where the Zetas drug gang has terrorized migrants trying to make their way north to the United States. It is the same region where authorities say the Zetas killed 72 Central American migrants in August.

Meanwhile, a different search over the last month in the capital of northwestern Durango state has yielded 96 bodies in two mass graves as of Tuesday, said Gerardo Ortiz, spokesman for the state attorney general's office.

State investigators led by federal agents have exhumed 79 bodies in a car repair shop of a working-class neighborhood of Durango city, Ortiz said. Seventeen other decomposed bodies were found in mid-April next to a well-known hacienda in the city, less than a mile away from the car shop.

snip
Security forces began exhuming the corpses on April 1 after they were led to the site by suspects who confessed to kidnapping and killing bus passengers traveling through the area.

The motive for the bus abductions remains unclear, though prosecutors have suggested the gang may be forcefully recruiting people to work for it. Morales said the Zetas have also been extorting migrants for up to $2,000. Those whose families pay are led across the border to the U.S. by the Zetas themselves, she said.