Thursday, November 05, 2009 KABUL: Five British soldiers were killed yesterday in a shooting at an Afghan police base in Helmand province, the Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday. The soldiers are believed to have been shot by a "rogue" Afghan policeman who opened fire in a police compound, Lieutenant Colonel David Wakefield, a military spokesman, told media. The British soldiers were living and working in the compound in the Nad-e’Ali district as part of an assignment to train Afghan national police officers, Wakefield said. The gunman and a possible accomplice escaped and a search is under way, Wakefield said. Three of the soldiers were from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, the ministry said. Next of kin have been informed, it added. "The death of five brave soldiers in a single incident is a terrible loss," Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in an e-mailed statement.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments