AFGHANISTAN: Policeman Kills Five British Soldiers
An Afghan policeman killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Afghanistan and the Taliban said he was one of their fighters who had infiltrated the force. The gunman opened fire at a military compound in Helmand province on Tuesday, a day after Afghan election officials cancelled a run-off vote in disputed presidential elections and gave President Hamid Karzai a second term in office. British soldiers returned fire but the policeman escaped and is still at large, a defence ministry spokeswoman said. An investigation into the shooting is under way. 'It appears that they were targeted because they were engaged in what our enemies fear most -- they were mentoring and training Afghan forces,' British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told parliament. 'The Taliban have claimed responsibility for this incident, so it may be that the Taliban have used an Afghan police member or that they have infiltrated the Afghan police.' A Taliban spokesman said the policeman was one of its fighters and they would carry out more such attacks. 'It's a new Taliban tactic, we have more Taliban who have infiltrated into the police and army,' spokesman Qare Mohammad Yousuf said. AlertNet (4 November)
Links to related articles:
ARTICLE: Meet Afghanistan's model police force: Inexperience, drugs and double agents, The Guardian (4 November)
ARTICLE: Afghan National Police penetrated by Taliban at "every level", The Telegraph (4 November)
ARTICLE: British MP calls for Afghanistan withdrawal as five UK soldiers are killed, Christian Science Monitor (4 November)
ARTICLE: Killing of five soldiers by rogue Afghan cop "deals blow to UK's exit strategy", The Telegraph (4 November)
REPORT: Afghan National Security Forces: Shaping Host Country Forces as Part Of Armed Nation Building, Center for Strategic and International Studies (30 October)
REPORT: Afghanistan’s Police: The Weak Link in Security Sector Reform, United States Institute of Peace (12 August)
REPORT: Ineffective, Unprofessional, and Corrupt: The Afghan National Police Challenge, Foreign Policy Research Institute (24 June)
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