KABUL: A member of the Afghan army shot dead a British soldier, officials said yesterday, in the latest “insider attack” to undermine the US-led mission training Afghans to take over from Nato troops next year.
The attack came as fears are growing in Afghanistan that turmoil could erupt after foreign troops depart.
The British member of an engineering regiment was killed when the Afghan opened fire on Monday at a base in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province in the insurgency-ridden south.
Nato soldiers are fighting alongside Afghan colleagues to thwart Taliban militants.
But more than 60 foreign soldiers were killed in 2012 in “insider attacks” that have bred mistrust and threatened to derail the training process.
Afghan soldiers and police are taking on responsibility for thwarting the militants from 100,000 Nato troops who will leave by the end of next year — more than a decade after a US-led invasion brought down the Taliban regime.
“The British soldier was killed when a suspected Afghan soldier opened fire first at Afghan troops and then at British soldiers,” said Major Martyn Crighton, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
“In the subsequent engagement, the attacker was killed by British troops.”
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi claimed in an email to AFP that the attack was carried out by a militant infiltrator, and that eight British and two Afghan soldiers had been killed.
The group often exaggerate death tolls and ISAF officials say that most “insider attacks” stem from personal grudges and cultural misunderstandings rather than Taliban plots.
A Helmand police official said three Nato soldiers were also wounded, but ISAF declined to confirm the figure.
The number of US troops who could remain in Afghanistan after Nato combat forces withdraw will be a key topic of the meeting.
Latest reports citing the US Defence Department suggest between 3,000 and 9,000 troops would remain to focus on preventing Al Qaeda, which was sheltered by the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, from regaining a foothold in Afghanistan.
General John Allen, commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, had earlier suggested leaving 6,000 to 20,000 US troops, US media reports have said.
The number of foreign soldiers battling the Taliban-led insurgency has already fallen to 100,000 from about 150,000.
Of those, 66,000 are US troops, down from a maximum of about 100,000.
Last month, in the first insider attack by a woman, a female police officer killed a US adviser in Kabul’s police headquarters.
The threat has become so serious that foreign soldiers working with Afghan forces are regularly watched over by so-called “guardian angel” troops to provide protection.
AFP
