Two members of the British military were shot dead by Afghan policemen in the latest fatal instance of rogue elements in the country's forces turning their guns on their allies.
The servicemen, a soldier in the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards and a RAF airman, were shot dead at a checkpoint at Lashkar Gah district in Helmand where they were providing security for a meeting with Afghan officials. The killings brought the number of British deaths in the war to 414.
The attacks came on the day Afghanistan took its next faltering step towards the exit of Western forces with the declaration of another series of regions passing under the security control of Hamid Karzai's government. But just hours before the announcement, Arsala Rahmani, an ex-Taleban official now involved in the peace process was shot dead in Kabul.
The Afghan Government and international forces said the murders were the vicious reactions of an insurgency which is fracturing, with more of its soldiers defecting under a "reconciliation programme" and morale supposedly fraying among its leadership, the "Quetta Shura", based in Pakistan.
But the shootings by the Afghan police, a so-called "green on blue" attack, will heighten foreboding among Western forces of an enemy within. Around 20 coalition troops have been shot dead in 2012 this year by erstwhile comrades, with the Taleban boasting of "sleepers" in the ranks. Examination of the circumstances of some deaths, however, show various reasons for the killings, not all of them political. But they have still been propaganda coups for the insurgents.
