Nato and Afghan officials were yesterday probing reports a rogue Afghan soldier shot dead foreign troops – said to be two US Marines – on a base in the volatile south of the country, the alliance said.
A Nato official said that two US Marines had been killed in the incident, which took place in Helmand province late on Thursday night.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official told AFP the Marines had been shot by an Afghan soldier who had been on the base for two to three weeks and was now missing.
Referring to it as a “green-on-green” incident, he said the Marines “weren’t shot in their beds, they must have been on guard duty”.
“Rounds were fired within the FOB (forward operating base) and an Afghan soldier was found to be missing the next morning,” he said.
Nato’s media office did not immediately confirm the details, saying it was aware of “the incident in Helmand province”.
A team from ISAF and the Afghan government “is investigating the incident,” it said. No further details were available.
The incident was initially reported early yesterday by Pakistan-based Afghan news agency Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).
AIP is not generally regarded as reliable and often publishes Taliban propaganda, including exaggerated claims of battlefield operations.
It quoted a Taliban spokesman saying an Afghan soldier had “shot and killed three foreign troops at a base in Sangin district of Helmand”.
“The ANA soldier opened fire on foreign troops at a base in Tamirano area close to the headquarters of Sangin last night, killing three foreign soldiers, Qari Muhammad Yousuf Ahmadi, spokesman of Taliban, told Afghan Islamic Press,” the report said.
It quoted Ahmadi saying the “soldier fled the base and joined (the) Taliban”.
But defence ministry official Mohammed Azim Mujahid, quoted by the German news agency DPA, said the killings were an accident.
“The soldier didn’t have any contact with the Taliban. It was only an accident,” he said.
Sangin has been labelled the most dangerous area in Afghanistan, with British forces fighting there from 2006 until September, when they handed over to US Marines.