Panetta urges Afghanistan to protect NATO forces after advisers death

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta urged the Afghan government on Saturday to take decisive action to protect NATO forces and curtail violence, after two American military officers were shot dead inside Afghanistan's interior ministry.

The Pentagon said Panetta made the appeal in a phone call with his Afghan counterpart, Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, who apologized over the incident.
 
"Minister Wardak said that President (Hamid) Karzai was assembling the religious leaders, parliamentarians, justices of the Supreme Court, and other senior Afghan officials to take urgent steps to do so (curtail violence)," said George Little, a Pentagon spokesman.

The two American officers found shot dead inside Afghanistan's interior ministry on Saturday were fired upon at close range, a U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The men were working as advisers to Afghanistan's interior ministry, the official said.

NATO's top commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, said on Saturday he was recalling all staff working at ministries in the Afghan capital after the officers death.    

"For obvious force protection reasons, I have also taken immediate measures to recall all other ISAF personnel working in ministries in and around Kabul," Allen said in a statement.   

The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the killing, believed to be a colonel and a major in the U.S. military, in Afghanistan's Interior Ministry on Saturday.

The group said the shootings were in retaliation for the burning of copies of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base in Afghanistan, which triggered days of widespread protests.

The incident came on the fifth day of protests across the nation sparked by the burning of Qurans at a U.S. base.     

President Barack Obama and other U.S. officials apologized and said it was a terrible mistake, but the incident has sent thousands to the streets in this deeply religious country. 

Reuters/AP