Rogue Afghan Cop Kills 5 Brit Soldiers

Culprit escapes after turning weapon on training team

By Jane Yager, Newser Staff

Posted Nov 4, 2009 6:17 AM CST

Copied

Rogue Afghan Cop Kills 5 Brit Soldiers — A casualty is loaded into an ambulance before being taken to a base hospital in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, after five British soldiers were shot dead in an attack. (AP Photo/APTN)

Five British soldiers died in Helmand province yesterday after a rogue Afghan cop opened fire on a group of Afghan policemen and their British mentors drinking tea together. The mentors had been training the Afghans for two weeks when one of the trainees turned his weapon on them without warning. The gunman then fled the scene on a motorbike.

The culprit, who may have had Taliban ties, also wounded six British soldiers and two Afghan policemen. Coming a month after an Afghan policeman killed two Americans, the incident raises questions about Western training of Afghan police vulnerable to Taliban recruitment. A British military official called the incident a "bolt from the blue" and vowed that "no stone will be left unturned" in catching the killer, the Times of London reports.

(More Afghanistan stories.)

Report an error