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KABUL, Dec 2: US troops operating under the Nato-led force mistakenly shot dead an Afghan policeman and injured a second officer in southern Afghanistan, Nato and Afghan officials said on Saturday.
The policemen were on patrol in the southern province of Ghazni when they came under fire from a Nato convoy patrolling the same area late on Friday, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.
One policeman was killed and a district police chief was injured in the shootout, he said.“American soldiers were on patrol. It was late at night. They opened fire on (police) men on the road thinking they were insurgents,” Bashary said.
Major Luke Knittig, spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), confirmed the incident, but said the troops had come under fire.
“I can confirm the incident. An investigation is underway,” Knittig said, adding that the patrol had came under fire from the “men in plain clothes” who later turned out to be policemen.
TALIBAN KILL FOUR: Taliban have killed four Afghan road workers, accusing them of spying for US forces in eastern Afghanistan.
The men, working on a US-sponsored road construction project in eastern Kunar province, were kidnapped nearly two weeks ago and their bodies were found on a mountain on Saturday, said counter-terrorism police chief Abdul Mateen. They were executed by gunshot, he said.
“Their bodies were found today. Taliban have killed them,” Mateen said, adding that the men were ordinary workers.
He ruled out the Taliban's claim that the victims were US spies.
“They were not spies. They were ordinary workers,” Mateen told AFP.
A purported Taliban spokesman, Mohammad Hanif, claimed the killings on behalf of the Taliban and said the men were spying for US forces based here to hunt them.
“These men were spies. We killed them,” Hanif told AFP by phone from an undisclosed location.—AFP
