KABUL — The killing of five British troops by a rogue Afghan policeman underlines concerns about training and discipline within the ranks and possible insurgent infiltration of a police force that the U.S. hopes will be its ticket out of Afghanistan someday.
The attack caused anguish in Britain, where public support for the war has been waning. Britain is the largest contributor to NATO forces in Afghanistan after the United States, and its continued presence here is central to President Barack Obama’s strategy as he weighs dispatching tens of thousands more U.S. troops.
The five British soldiers, who had been advising Afghan policemen, were shot and killed Tuesday at a checkpoint where they were living in Helmand province. Six other soldiers were wounded, as were two Afghan policemen when the soldiers returned fire, officials said. The gunman escaped, and his motive was unclear.
Meanwhile, the U.N. says it is temporarily relocating more than half of its international staff in Afghanistan following last week’s deadly Taliban attack against U.N. workers.
A spokesman said about 600 nonessential staffers will be moved for several weeks to more secure locations in and outside of Afghanistan.
The Tuesday attack, which echoed two police shootings of U.S. soldiers last year, raised questions about whether international forces are trying to recruit and train Afghan police too quickly.
“There isn’t a lot of vetting of police before they are hired,” Peter Galbraith, the former top American official at the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, told BBC Radio 4.
In London, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, trying to rally support for the war, warned against judging the entire Afghan police force on this one incident. The latest deaths bring the British death toll in the war to 229.
Hours before Tuesday’s attack was made public, a senior Labor figure, former Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, broke with Brown and called for a phased withdrawal of British forces.
Afterward, Howells said the shootings show how hard it will be for Britain and the U.S. to bring the Afghan army and police to the point where they can provide their own security.
