Afghan Security Forces Attack Coalition Troops, Officials Say

Kabul – Afghan security forces apparently opened fire on NATO troops in southern Afghanistan earlier this week, American and Afghan officials revealed late Thursday and on Friday.

In one episode, a coalition soldier was killed when a man in an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon on NATO troops in southern Afghanistan, the American military said in a statement released Thursday night. Coalition forces killed the attacker, the statement said.

A spokesman for the international coalition declined to comment on reports that the attacker was an Afghan special forces soldier.

In the second episode, a skirmish broke out between Afghan National Police and NATO soldiers in Zahri District near Kandahar City on Wednesday, Zalmai Ayoubi, the spokesman for the governor of Kandahar Province, said on Friday. In the ensuing firefight, two police officers were killed and two NATO soldiers were wounded, he said.

In an unrelated episode, three coalition service members were killed by a roadside bomb Thursday in eastern Afghanistan, the American military said late Thursday.

In keeping with policy pending notification of next of kin, the military spokesmen did not release the nationalities of the victims in any of the episodes.

The shootings were the latest in a series of so-called green-on-blue incidents in Afghanistan this year after public anger erupted over inadvertent Koran burnings at an American base in late February.

If reports implicating an Afghan special forces soldier prove true, it would be especially worrying for the NATO coalition. Highly trained and closely mentored by American advisers, the special forces are due to take over from the Americans sensitive duties like night raids.

This article, “Afghan Security Forces Attack Coalition Troops, Officials Say,” originally appeared in The New York Times.