At least eight local police officers have been killed in an insider attack in the southern Afghan province of Zabul.
Two officers turned their guns on their own colleagues at a local police checkpoint in LoyShor Village, Shinkay District overnight, Zabul provincial council member, Haji Asadullah Kakar, said on Saturday, DPA reported.
“Taking the guns, ammunitions and a vehicle they fled the area and joined the Taliban,” Kakar said, adding that it appeared the attackers already had connections with the group.
“The infiltrators first poisoned their colleagues and then shot them dead,” provincial spokesman, Gul Islam Seyal, said, adding that the attackers fled the area taking all the weapons and munitions from the base.
The governor of Zabul, Bismillah Afghanmal, said they had launched an investigation into the incident.
Taliban Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a message to the media that the group’s “infiltrators” carried out the attack.
The Taliban have recruited members of the security forces in recent years to carry out insider attacks against both the country’s own police force and troops as well as foreign troops.
In January, another eight local police officers were killed by their own colleagues in Afghanistan’s northern Faryab Province.
In late December, five Afghan soldiers were killed when a number of Taliban militants wearing police uniforms attacked a checkpoint in Sha Wali Kot District in the southern province of Kandahar.
The recent terror attacks come just before the normal start of the spring fighting season, when the warmer weather brings increased operations by both rebel and government forces.
