In particular, the targeting of what ISAF calls "mid-level commanders" appears to have been effective.
"We'll see what ISAF and the security forces in and out of Kabul can do to prevent this from happening again, but personally I can't say I'm optimistic".
With the vast bulk of foreign troops in Afghanistan coming from America, the US has inevitably suffered the most from what Isaf calls "green on blue incidents".
"The two wounded received excellent medical care, equal to what any ISAF member would receive," the official said.
What Mr. Isaf was describing, said his friend Brian Fountain, is an ailment that has existed as long as humans have walked the earth, but which has become acute now that social media alerts are landing on digital screens like hail on a window.
At a hastily convened news conference on Sunday, the deputy ISAF commander, Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, read a brief statement that did little to clarify what happened between the ISAF and Afghan National Army, or ANA, soldiers.
The man later died of burns.What might most alarm ISAF's commanders, however, is that the massacre seemed to cause the greatest shock abroad, coming on top of a steady stream of ISAF casualties, the angry protests provoked by the Koran-burning, and the temporary withdrawal of foreign advisers from Mr Karzai's ministries after two of them were killed in Kabul last month.
Nobody talks of victory any longer, but of what General David Petraeus, the commander of ISAF, calls "Afghanistan good enough".
The action followed what are described as intense negotiations with ISAF, UK Task Force Helmand, and GoA [government of Afghanistan] officials to gain consent for eradicating local opium poppies.
The latest attack comes during what has been a bloody month for Isaf in Afghanistan, with at least 15 foreign military personnel killed in separate incidents since the beginning of May.
These attacks reveal what a daunting mission lies before NATO-ISAF commander Gen. McChrystal and his team, as they begin operationalizing the strategy laid out by the Obama administration.
