NATO: Insurgents Behead 6 Police in Afghanistan
VOA News 21 July 2010
NATO forces in Afghanistan say militants have beheaded six Afghan police officers in the northern part of the country. In a statement Wednesday, NATO said the killings occurred Tuesday during an insurgent attack on a school, clinic and local government building in Dahanah-ye Ghori, a district of Baghlan province.
NATO says police successfully repelled the assault, but that during the attack, insurgents overran a police checkpoint and killed the officers. The alliance condemned the incident as "brutal" and "barbaric."
In a separate development Wednesday, Afghanistan's defense ministry said an argument prompted an Afghan soldier to shoot at and kill two U.S. civilian trainers at an army base Tuesday.
The ministry released a statement saying the soldier opened fire on the Americans after getting into a verbal argument with them. Another Afghan soldier was killed in the crossfire, and the gunman was also shot and killed.
NATO said the incident occurred during a weapons training exercise at the Camp Shaheen army base near Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of the northern province of Balkh. The shooter was believed to be an Afghan army trainer assigned to the base.
The attack comes a week after a similar incident in which three British troops were killed by an Afghan soldier in southern Helmand province. The soldier fled after the attack.
In other violence, NATO says a service member died Wednesday in a roadside bomb attack in southern Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister David Cameron says his country could start withdrawing troops from Afghanistan as early as next year, when the United States plans to begin its drawdown. However, Mr. Cameron told British radio that the decision should be based on conditions on the ground. He added that he does not want to raise expectations about a British withdrawal.
But the prime minister said the people of Britain can be clear that, by 2015, the country will no longer have combat units or large numbers of troops in Afghanistan.
Mr. Cameron, who took office in May, discussed Afghanistan with U.S. President Barack Obama Tuesday in his first visit to the White House as prime minister.
Both leaders have faced domestic pressure to send troops home from Afghanistan, but say the process depends on whether the Afghan army is prepared to take care of the country's security.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said he is determined to have Afghan forces take full responsibility for security by 2014.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and AFP.
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