An Afghan policeman opened fire and threw a hand grenade into a US military patrol in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing a US soldier and raising fears that insurgents have infiltrated the police force.
Meanwhile, an airstrike by foreign troops in southern Helmand Province killed several women and children, a provincial police chief said.
The officer standing on a tower attacked the US foot patrol returning to a base in Bermel district of the eastern Paktika Province on Thursday, the US military said. The troops returned fire on the tower, killing the policemen.
It was the second attack on US soldiers by Afghan policemen in less than a month.
Militants in Afghanistan have used police and army uniforms in the past when conducting attacks on Afghan and foreign troops, but these two incidents involved real policemen.
Training of the police force and the Afghan national army are key elements in the US strategy of dealing with the Taliban-led insurgency that has spread in many parts of the country.
Last month, an Afghan policeman opened fire on US troops at a police station in Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan, killing a US soldier and wounding three other troops. US forces then killed the policeman.
The shooting took place after US troops and Afghan police brought suspected militants to the station following a roadside bomb attack on their patrol.
Both provinces are close to the Pakistan border and are scenes of nearly daily clashes between US troops and insurgents, who use Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas as sanctuaries from where they launch attacks into Afghanistan.
In Helmand Province, meanwhile, an airstrike killed several women and children, said Assadullah Sherzad, the provincial police chief.
Angry villagers brought 18 dead bodies — including badly mangled bodies of women and children — outside the governors house in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah, said Haji Adnan Khan, a tribal leader in the city, who had seen the bodies.
Khan said there might be more bodies trapped under the rubble.
Sherzad could not say how many people had died in the airstrike, which he said was launched by foreign troops.
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