KABUL, Afghanistan — An Afghan soldier shot a United States Army major general to death and wounded a German brigadier general and at least 14 other foreign and Afghan military service members on Tuesday at a military training academy on the outskirts of Kabul, officials of the American-led coalition said Tuesday. The major general appeared to be the highest-ranking member of the American military to die in hostilities overseas since the Vietnam War.

The coalition officials said a senior Afghan commander also was among the wounded. The officials declined to identify any of the victims by name. The identity of the gunman was not disclosed, either, but a Pentagon spokesman told reporters in Washington that he had been killed.

The Pentagon spokesman, Rear Adm. John Kirby, also said officials believed the gunman was “a member of the Afghan national security forces,” but he had no other details about him or the circumstances of the shooting.

Admiral Kirby also said the shooting, the first so-called insider attack in months in Afghanistan, was an inherent risk of the war, calling it “a pernicious threat and always difficult to ascertain.”

The German military confirmed that one of its brigadier generals serving in Afghanistan was among 15 coalition-led troops wounded in the shooting, described as “presumably an internal attack.” The general was being treated for his injuries, which were not life-threatening, the Germans said in a statement.

Other details of the shooting were sketchy, and the coalition, in an official statement, would only confirm that one of its service members had been killed in what it described as “an incident” at the Marshall Fahim National Defense University in Kabul. The coalition declined to specify any further details, saying it was still working to notify the family of the deceased.

Tensions at the military academy ran high in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, which took place around noon, and foreign troops appeared to be on edge, fearful of another attack.

Massoud Hossaini, a photographer for The Associated Press, said that he arrived at the camp’s gate ahead of other journalists, and just as coalition armored vehicles were pulling out of the compound. A coalition soldier manning the roof-mounted gun on one of the vehicles shouted for Mr. Hossaini to “get away,” and then fired an apparent warning shot.

“I don’t know what he fired. It was fired near our car,” he said, adding that he left the scene straight away.

In images of the incident released by the AP, the coalition soldier appeared to be firing a warning flare.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement that a “few people were wounded” in the shooting, and that they had been immediately evacuated to a hospital. It described the attacker as “wearing Afghan National Army uniform,” which has long been a standard description offered after Afghan troops attack their foreign counterparts.

Other Afghan and coalition officials said they believed the gunman was an Afghan soldier. The coalition, in its brief statement, said the incident had involved “local Afghan and ISAF troops,” using the initials for the International Security Assistance Force, the formal name of the NATO-led coalition.

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Sher Alam, an Afghan soldier guarding the entrance to the academy, located at Camp Qargha, said that senior Afghan and coalition officers had been meeting there on Tuesday, and that reports from inside the camp indicated that a number of the foreign officers were shot in the attack. He said that soon after the shooting, coalition helicopters landed inside the academy to evacuate the victims.

Until Tuesday, no officer in the American military of major general rank or higher had been reported killed by hostile action abroad since the Vietnam War. According to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial database, Maj. Gen. John Albert B. Dillard Jr. was killed on May 12, 1970 when his helicopter was shot down. Rear Adm. Rembrandt Cecil Robinson, the Navy’s equivalent of a major general, was killed on May 8, 1972, when his helicopter crashed. Five other American officers of comparable rank were killed earlier in the war, all in air crashes, whether accidental or caused by hostile action.

Lt. Gen. Timothy L. Maude, who was the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel, was killed during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon, according to the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

Insider attacks in Afghanistan, in which Afghan troops open fire on unsuspecting coalition forces, at one point posed a serious challenge to the war effort, sowing distrust and threatening to upend the American-led training mission that is vital to the long-term strategy for keeping the Taliban at bay.

Though the number of attacks has dropped sharply since 2012, when dozens occurred, they remain a persistent threat for coalition troops serving alongside Afghan forces. “It’s impossible to completely eliminate that threat, particularly in a place like Afghanistan,” Admiral Kirby said.

Afghan and American commanders have said that they believed most of the insider attacks that had taken place were the work of ordinary soldiers who had grown alienated and angry over the continued presence of foreign troops here, and not carried out by Taliban fighters planted in Afghan units.

The Taliban, which often takes credit for insider attacks, did not assert responsibility for the Tuesday shooting. But Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the insurgents, said in an emailed statement that the gunman was an “Afghan hero soldier who turned his weapon against foreign invaders.”

 Ouze wrote:
A guy got killed in a war zone?

 Ouze wrote:
A guy got killed in a war zone?

 whembly wrote:


The drones are getting warmed up.

trexmeyer wrote:I'm a bit surprised no one thinks a Major General (2 Star) getting killed is news around here.

trexmeyer wrote:I'm eagerly awaiting the President's reaction to this latest attack six years after he said he would bring the soldiers home.

 Ouze wrote:

trexmeyer wrote:I'm a bit surprised no one thinks a Major General (2 Star) getting killed is news around here.

Sorry no one is nibbling your trollbait.

trexmeyer wrote:I'm eagerly awaiting the President's reaction to this latest attack six years after he said he would bring the soldiers home.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I'm a bit surprised no one thinks a Major General (2 Star) getting killed is news around here.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I meant on DakkaDakka. Everyone ignored that bit of it.

 Ouze wrote:
Speaking of forced memes, this ebola thing is just... probably the most egregious example of trying to make fetch happen that I've ever seen. CNN is not going to stop until there's a needless public panic, dammit, and to hell with facts and journalism.

 Ouze wrote:
Speaking of forced memes, this ebola thing is just... probably the most egregious example of trying to make fetch happen that I've ever seen. CNN is not going to stop until there's a needless public panic, dammit, and to hell with facts and journalism.

 Ouze wrote:
Speaking of forced memes, this ebola thing is just... probably the most egregious example of trying to make fetch happen that I've ever seen. CNN is not going to stop until there's a needless public panic, dammit, and to hell with facts and journalism.

 Ouze wrote:
I'm not disagreeing with the idea that it's newsworthy at all (though is it worse when a Major dies than a PFC?).

My beef is with the presentation - is that you're claiming it's not trollbait while immediately using this tragedy as a partisan bat against the President. I mean, if you're going to do that, own it I think.

 trexmeyer wrote:
I'm simply bemused by the fact he made these promises and six years later we are still entangled in this miss.

 Ouze wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:
I'm simply bemused by the fact he made these promises and six years later we are still entangled in this miss.

His campaign promise was to end the war in Iraq, which is done, and to end the war in Afghanistan in 2014. So far that's more or less on track. I think we're going to need a specific promise to go further. His only campaign promise for Afghanistan in this arena was actually to escalate the war.