I'm starting to change my stance on it being worth it for Coalition forces to be there any longer. I didn't realise how many times this has already happened before.
AS the family and loved ones of Melbourne-born Lance Corporal Andrew Jones were last night coming to terms with his death at the hands of a supposed ally, the renegade Afghan soldier who shot him was being feted as a hero by the Taliban.
According to tribal elders in the Chora Valley, the Afghan soldier had been adorned with fake flowers by a Taliban commander and paraded around as a hero on the back of a motorbike.
While the elder's claims were hard to verify, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the soldier would be welcome.
"We will give him everything he wants," Ahmadi said. "He killed the enemy face-to-face and then escaped."
Lance Corporal Jones, 25, joined the army as a cook. But, a soldier first, he volunteered to serve in one of the small stone forts scattered through the Australian forces' area of operations in Oruzgan province in southern Afghanistan.
Early on Monday, he was standing sentry duty in a guard tower at Forward Operating Base Mashal in the Chora Valley with two Afghan soldiers.
One of the Afghan men climbed down from the tower briefly and then heard shots from above. He dashed back to his post and found Lance Corporal Jones collapsed and bleeding from three bullet wounds.
The Afghan soldier saw his counterpart running from the base and fired at him, but missed. Australian and Afghan soldiers at the base tried to save the soldier and he was flown to the coalition base at Tarin Kowt in less than an hour. He died from his wounds.
The Afghan Defence Ministry told The Australian the Afghan soldier's name was Shafeedullah Gul Aamon, from the eastern province of Khost. Last night, he was being hunted by Australian troops, their US allies and the Afghan National Army.
The former district governor of Chora, Mohammed Dawood Khan, vowed to catch the rogue soldier. "We will hunt him down like a dog," he said.
The murder follows the death of dozens of Coalition troops at the hands of Afghan soldiers during the 10-year conflict, including eight US troops killed in Kabul in April.
Some Afghanistan National Army troops remain fiercely loyal to their tribal leaders. They have questionable backgrounds and are answerable only to Afghan authorities.
Aussie troops have long-held concerns about rogue Afghan soldiers. Their fears stem from numerous incidents where the Afghans have been high on a cocktail of opium. There have also been numerous reports of local soldiers deserting Australian troops in the heat of battle.
The Federal Government first became aware of the troops' fears in 2008 when then defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon had to be whisked away from a patrol after an assassination threat by a rogue Afghan soldier.
In July last year, a rogue Afghan soldier, Sgt Talib Hussein, 32, shot a British major in his sleeping quarters at Patrol Base Three in Nahr-e Saraj district.
He then fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the command centre, killing two more British soldiers. He claimed it was in retaliation for British behaviour, and he was off to join the Taliban.
American soldiers have also been murdered by the enemy within. The reasons are many and varied.
The great hope of the militants is to undermine the confidence between Afghan troops and coalition forces, who are always partnered throughout Afghanistan, and destabilise the planned handover in 2014.
AS the family and loved ones of Melbourne-born Lance Corporal Andrew Jones were last night coming to terms with his death at the hands of a supposed ally, the renegade Afghan soldier who shot him was being feted as a hero by the Taliban.
According to tribal elders in the Chora Valley, the Afghan soldier had been adorned with fake flowers by a Taliban commander and paraded around as a hero on the back of a motorbike.
While the elder's claims were hard to verify, a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the soldier would be welcome.
"We will give him everything he wants," Ahmadi said. "He killed the enemy face-to-face and then escaped."
Lance Corporal Jones, 25, joined the army as a cook. But, a soldier first, he volunteered to serve in one of the small stone forts scattered through the Australian forces' area of operations in Oruzgan province in southern Afghanistan.
Early on Monday, he was standing sentry duty in a guard tower at Forward Operating Base Mashal in the Chora Valley with two Afghan soldiers.
One of the Afghan men climbed down from the tower briefly and then heard shots from above. He dashed back to his post and found Lance Corporal Jones collapsed and bleeding from three bullet wounds.
The Afghan soldier saw his counterpart running from the base and fired at him, but missed. Australian and Afghan soldiers at the base tried to save the soldier and he was flown to the coalition base at Tarin Kowt in less than an hour. He died from his wounds.
The Afghan Defence Ministry told The Australian the Afghan soldier's name was Shafeedullah Gul Aamon, from the eastern province of Khost. Last night, he was being hunted by Australian troops, their US allies and the Afghan National Army.
The former district governor of Chora, Mohammed Dawood Khan, vowed to catch the rogue soldier. "We will hunt him down like a dog," he said.
The murder follows the death of dozens of Coalition troops at the hands of Afghan soldiers during the 10-year conflict, including eight US troops killed in Kabul in April.
Some Afghanistan National Army troops remain fiercely loyal to their tribal leaders. They have questionable backgrounds and are answerable only to Afghan authorities.
Aussie troops have long-held concerns about rogue Afghan soldiers. Their fears stem from numerous incidents where the Afghans have been high on a cocktail of opium. There have also been numerous reports of local soldiers deserting Australian troops in the heat of battle.
The Federal Government first became aware of the troops' fears in 2008 when then defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon had to be whisked away from a patrol after an assassination threat by a rogue Afghan soldier.
In July last year, a rogue Afghan soldier, Sgt Talib Hussein, 32, shot a British major in his sleeping quarters at Patrol Base Three in Nahr-e Saraj district.
He then fired a rocket-propelled grenade into the command centre, killing two more British soldiers. He claimed it was in retaliation for British behaviour, and he was off to join the Taliban.
American soldiers have also been murdered by the enemy within. The reasons are many and varied.
The great hope of the militants is to undermine the confidence between Afghan troops and coalition forces, who are always partnered throughout Afghanistan, and destabilise the planned handover in 2014.