Afghanistan Times
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AT-KABUL: Six police officers were killed after three of their comrades attacked them in the southern province of Uruzgan, local officials said Saturday.
“Six Afghan policemen were killed by three fellow policemen while they were in check post in Shahid Hsas district,” provincial governor spokesman Dost Mohammad Naiab told Afghanistan Times.
He added that the incident took place late Friday and the attackers managed to escape, taking weapons and ammunition of their dead colleagues.
“It is not clear whether the attacker joined Taliban,” Nayab said, provincial security organs have already started investigation into the case.
The attackers had been recently transferred there from Kandahar province, according to officials.
Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
Insider attack is not a new thing and often takes place by the Taliban sympathizers in the army and police. Taliban infiltrators killed the NATO-led international troops in the so-called ‘green-on-blue’ attacks.
Now they usually target Afghan soldiers and police after the end of the NATO combat mission.
On Thursday, an Afghan policeman turned his gun on his colleagues as they were manning a checkpoint in Uruzgan’s neighboring province of Zabul, killing eight policemen. Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.
On January 26, a policeman defected to the Taliban, killed 10 of his fellows in Uruzgan province. He first drugged the policemen before killing them.
Again in January, a policeman in Uruzgan shot dead nine comrades and joined Taliban. He took weapons and ammunition from the checkpoint. On January 16, four cops were killed in an apparent insider attack in Khakriz district of Kandahar province. The attackers were in uniform.
No one is sure that when there will an end to such attacks. These attacks had broad psychological effects over performance of the security forces because policemen and soldiers don’t know that when their comrades will turn their guns on them.
How can a solider or a cop focus on the war on terrorism and insurgency when he cannot trust his fellows in the line of duty? The government should make its last-ditch efforts to a put a full stop to this insider attacks.
