'Insider Attack' Looms Large as More US Troops Head to Afghanistan

Seven American troops were wounded Saturday in an insider attack by an Afghan soldier at a military base. This is the second 'green-on-blue' attack in one week, and it comes as the U.S. is about to boost its troop presence in the country.

The shootout at Camp Shaheen near northern Mazar-i-Sharif city is the second "green-on-blue" attack -- where Afghan soldiers turn their weapons on international forces assisting them—reported this week. 

The latest incident comes just a week after an Afghan commando killed three American troops and wounded another in eastern Nangarhar province in an insider attack that was claimed by the Taliban.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and his administration are still trying to determine whether to send some 4,000 American troops to Afghanistan.

But according Special Inspector General of Afghanistan's Reconstruction John Sopko, the man in charge of rebuilding the county, adding more troops is not the only answer. 

"Drugs are hampering the country's development and so is corruption," he said. "Most of the opium produced in the world comes from Afghanistan. It is the really only growth industry in Afghanistan and it's skyrocketed -- so much so that even General Nicholson warned us that 60 percent of the funding for the insurgency comes from the narcotics traffic."
 
According to reports CBN News obtained, the Afghan government currently only controls some 60 percent of the country. That is down about 5 percent from a few years ago. 

So what would it take to eventually bring our troops home? Sopko says it's going to take the entire U.S. government working together to end this war.

"That means not only the military, but the State Department, USAID,  Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Agency, the whole of government," Sopko said. 

"If we are so afraid that we have bunker mentality in the State Department that won't let the Department of Justice attorneys out there --  I'm not saying be reckless, but you can't be so risk adverse that you stay behind the bunker. If you do that the bad guys have won," he warned. 
 
By not leaving that bunker, Sopko says this 16-year war would continue for many years to come.