MINNEAPOLIS - As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey knows, the war isn't totally over in Afghanistan.
"Afghanistan is one of those places where violence and progress can coexist in ways that are just unimaginable," General Dempsey said Thursday when asked about the violence escalating there.
That effort at coexistence seems to be at the heart of the matter.
For the seventh time in just two weeks Afghan security forces, or people dressing in their uniforms, have opened fire on international forces.
On Friday, two Americans were killed by a newly minted Afghan local policeman. He opened fire on them just moments after being given his weapon.
"The investigation is still ongoing and we have no findings yet, in terms of what the reason for this insider threat incident was," said General Gunter Katz of the International Security Assistance Force.
American forces are in the center of trying to quell the violence, and Gen. Dempsey says his staff is well aware that the bulk of it is the western and southern parts of the country.
"The violence has continued. It's limited to a handful of places in the country, and that is quite remarkable that though the numbers are up the locations in the country where the violence is prominent is actually down," Gen. Dempsey said.
But that concentration in geography does little to ease international forces members' minds.
So far this year there have been 29 attacks on foreign troops by the Afghans they are training. In those attacks more than 230 Americans have been killed.
To put that in perspective, in all of last year there were 11 attacks.
(Copyright 2012 by KARE. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)