Afghanistan shooting

JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. — The U.S. military has been criticized for its spotty record on convicting troops of killing civilians, but a hearing against Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales involving a massacre in Afghanistan has shown that it isn’t like most cases.

KABUL, Afghanistan — A man in an Afghan uniform shot and killed three American troops Friday morning in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military command said, in the third attack on coalition forces by their Afghan counterparts in a week. The Taliban claimed the shooter joined the insurgency after the attack.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- It was early in the morning, perhaps 2 a.m., when gunfire awoke 14-year-old Rafiullah.

He looked outside the house he'd been sleeping in with his grandmother, an aunt, two cousins and his sister, and he saw a man with a weapon walk to a shed that housed the family cow and open fire, shooting the animal dead.

"I told the women inside our room: 'Let's run! Let's get out of here,' " recalled Rafiullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- An Afghan policeman shot to death nine of his fellow officers as they slept in a village in an eastern Taliban stronghold on Friday, police said, blaming the attack on the insurgents.

SEATTLE — In her first media interview, Karilyn Bales — wife of the Army staff sergeant accused of murdering 17 Afghan civilians — says it’s hard for her to believe her husband could have committed the killings. She also says she didn’t notice behavior indicating that he could be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The United States has paid $50,000 in compensation for each Afghan killed and $11,000 for each person wounded in the shooting spree allegedly committed by a U.S. soldier in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official and a community elder said Sunday.

LAKE TAPPS, Wash. -- For those who grew up with him, Robert Bales seemed to have a place reserved on easy street. Captain of the football team and president of the sophomore class at his Ohio high school, Bales after just three years of college had an oceanfront condo in Florida. He was also pulling in more than $100,000 a year as a financial adviser.