Four NATO Soldiers Murdered In Afghanistan During "Insider" Attack

Four NATO Soldiers Murdered In Afghanistan During “Insider” Attack

Four soldiers fighting with the NATO-led alliance were killed in an apparent insider shooting in southern Afghanistan on Sunday. Local authorities told NBC News that the victims Americans, but NATO would not confirm the reports. The shooting took place in Zabol, a southern province where U.S. forces are based, and came a day after two British soldiers were shot dead by an Afghan policeman while returning from a patrol in southern Helmand province – a stronghold of the Taliban-led insurgency.

Local authorities told NBC News that the four killed were Americans. Jeremy Kelly, a Kabul-based reporter for UK newspaper The Times, also posted on Twitter that the victims were U.S. soldiers – citing a provincial official.

However, an ISAF statement released to NBC News did not identify the nationality of the victims. “It is ISAF policy to defer casualty identification procedures to the relevant national authorities,” the statement said. The ISAF statement described the incident as “an insider attack suspected to involve members of the Afghan police.”

One attacker who was wearing an Afghan National Police uniform (ANP) was also killed in the fighting, a source told Reuters. At least 51 foreign military personnel have been killed in “insider” attacks this year, attacks which have put a heavy strain on trust between the coalition and Afghanistan as they move towards handing security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

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