A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemeri Bashary, confirmed that the gunman in yesterday’s attack was a border police officer rather than an insurgent who donned the uniform for a day.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, saying the gunman joined the border police to kill foreign soldiers.
“Today he found this opportunity and he killed six invaders,’’ said Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, in a statement e-mailed to the media.
The shooter opened fire on the NATO troops and then was killed in the shootout, NATO said, without providing additional details.
Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that the six killed were American. He declined to provide their identities or say which military branch they were from until next of kin could be notified.
Bashary said the attack happened in the Pachir Wagam district of Nangarhar Province, a volatile area near Pakistan.
An investigation team has been sent to Pachir Wagam, said General Aminullah Amerkhail, the regional border police commander for the east. But he said information was not coming back quickly.
“The area is very remote,’’ he said. “Even the telephones are not working there.’’
NATO is still investigating a case earlier this month in which two US Marines were killed in southern Helmand Province, allegedly at the hands of an Afghan soldier.
After two deadly shootings in July, NATO officers said they were reexamining training practices to make sure that such attacks did not happen again.
On July 20, an Afghan army sergeant got into an argument at a shooting range in northern Afghanistan and shot dead two American civilian trainers before being killed. Another Afghan soldier was killed in the crossfire.
A week earlier, an Afghan soldier stationed in the south killed three British troopers, including the company commander, with gunfire and a rocket-propelled grenade in the middle of the night.
In November 2009, an Afghan police officer killed five British soldiers at a checkpoint in Helmand.
