Afghan soldier kills three British troops: Kabul
An Afghan soldier killed three British troops in a volatile region of the country yesterday, officials in Kabul said, pledging a full investigation into the shooting.
Details of the incident on an army base in southern Afghanistan were not immediately clear but the office of President Hamid Karzai voiced regret.
"We confirm that an Afghan army soldier has opened fire and killed three British soldiers," defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.
He gave no further details but said the ministry would soon release a statement.
The shooting drew parallels with an attack by an Afghan policeman last November who shot dead five British soldiers at a checkpoint in southern province Helmand, where the majority of Britain's troops are based.
A police official in Helmand, where the Britain has about 10,000 troops, said the Afghan soldier had escaped after Tuesday's attack.
The US-led NATO force in Afghanistan earlier announced that three foreign soldiers had been killed in an "attack" in the south, heartland of a nine-year Taliban insurgency, but gave no further details nor their nationalities.
"A joint ISAF and Afghan ministry of defence team is investigating the incident due to allegations the ISAF service members were fired upon by an Afghan national army soldier," it said, referring to NATO's International Security Assistance Force.
A military official in Kabul, who refused to be named, told AFP the soldiers were British and had died in a "friendly fire" incident.
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