Afghan forces kill 3 in NATO ranks

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan security forces shot and killed three international troops Monday, one of them an American, in two attacks. They were the latest in a rising number of attacks in which Afghan forces have turned their weapons on their foreign partners.

The killings reflect a spike in tensions between Afghan and international forces that followed an American soldier’s purported massacre of Afghan civilians, the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. base and uncertainty about Afghanistan’s fate as foreign troops prepare to pull out.

In one shooting Monday, two British servicemen were killed by an Afghan soldier in front of the main gate of a joint civilian-military base in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said.Another NATO serviceman was shot and killed at a checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan by a man who was believed to be a member of a village-level fighting force the U.S. is fostering in hopes of countering the Taliban insurgency. The Pentagon confirmed Monday that the dead soldier was American but did not release further details.

Maj. Ian Lawrence, a British military spokesman for Task Force Helmand, said one of the British troops was a Royal Marine and the other was a soldier from the British Adjutant General’s Corps. They were killed in front of the base in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital of Helmand province.

The Afghan soldier, who had been in the Afghan National Army for four years, arrived at the gate in an army vehicle, said Ghulam Farooq Parwani, deputy commander of the Afghan army in Helmand. He was able to get close to the British troops by claiming he had been assigned to provide security for a delegation of government officials from Kabul who were visiting the base Monday, Parwani added.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi said the gunman was an Afghan soldier who was in close contact with insurgents and had notified the Taliban of his planned attack before carrying it out. However, Wahid Muzhda, a former Taliban Foreign Ministry official and an analyst on issues related to the group, said the Taliban were not behind most of the latest killings.

Since 2007, an estimated 80 NATO servicemen have been killed by Afghan security forces, according to an Associated Press tally, which is based on Pentagon figures released in February.

In other developments, the 17th victim of a shooting rampage in Afghanistan was identified after investigators arrived at the scene, the top U.S. commander in the country said Monday in explaining why the U.S. toll is higher than that originally provided by Afghan officials.

The U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, said the widely reported toll of 16 dead came from Afghans immediately after the shooting, but another victim was identified later.

“We should not be surprised that in fact as the investigation went forward, an additional number was added,” he said.

Another senior military official said there was no evidence that the additional victim was an unborn baby, disputing media reports that quoted local Afghan officials as saying that one of the female casualties was found to be pregnant. The additional victim was an adult, said the U.S. military officer, speaking anonymously because he was discussing an ongoing investigation.

The Afghan official, Brig. Gen. Abdul Raziq, retracted his statement about the unborn baby a few hours later.

Information for this article was contributed by Deb Riechmann, Amir Shah, Mirwais Khan, David Stringer, Cassandra Vinograd and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press; by Rod Nordland, Matthew Rosenberg, Sangar Rahimi, Jawad Sukhanya, J. David Goodman and an Afghan employee of The New York Times; and by David S. Cloud of the Tribune Washington Bureau.