The American soldier killed in the latest insider attack in Afghanistan was U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Timothy A. Bolyard, according to multiple reports.
Bolyard was shot to death on Monday at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar province, Stars and Stripes reported, citing Afghan military commanders. The attack occurred as U.S. military advisers and their Afghan counterparts broke for lunch after security meetings.
Witnesses said the shots came from an Afghan police Humvee that was parked near the meeting site. All four policemen in the vehicle were arrested.
Bolyard, 42, was the highest ranking enlisted soldier for 1st Squadron, 38th Cavalry Regiment, which is deployed to Afghanistan as part of the 1st Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB), Newsweek reported, citing U.S. military officials. A married father of two, Bolyard was reportedly on his 13th overseas deployment, eight of which were to combat zones.
Monday’s attack was the second time in two months that an American serviceman has been killed by a member of Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed security forces. Army Cpl. Joseph Maciel was killed in July by an Afghan soldier in an attack that wounded at least two other servicemen at an airfield in central Afghanistan. (RELATED: Afghan Soldier Kills Army Serviceman In Insider Attack)
Bolyard’s death is the sixth U.S. fatality in Afghanistan this year.
The Army created the Security Force Assistance Brigades (SFAB) in February 2017 as a way to take over some of the responsibility for training Afghan security forces that had fallen to U.S. special forces. The 1st SFAB comprises about 800 officers and senior non-commissioned officers with combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Although insider attacks against U.S. troops have declined from their peak in 2012, they remain a significant threat to Afghan troops. There were 47 so-called “green-on-green” attacks against Afghan security forces by assailants from within their own ranks between December 1, 2017, and May 31, according to the Pentagon.
Over the same time period, there were no “green-on-blue” attacks against U.S. service members.
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