KABUL, Dec 24: An Afghan policewoman shot dead a Nato civilian adviser inside Kabul police headquarters on Monday, officials said, in the first “insider” attack by a woman.

It was the latest in a series of such attacks that have seriously undermined trust between Nato forces and their Afghan allies in the fight against hardline Islamist Taliban insurgents.

A spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the adviser died of his wounds and the female police officer who shot him had been detained.

In another insider attack on Monday, the head of a local police post in the northern province of Jawzjan shot dead five of his colleagues and ran away to join the Taliban, said provincial police chief Abdul Aziz Ghairat.

Interior ministry spokesman Sediq Seidiqqi confirmed the Kabul incident and said an investigation was under way, while a senior security official said the victim was a male adviser from Nato.

A US military official said the adviser was American.

A police officer at the scene said the shooting happened in the courtyard of the heavily-guarded headquarters in central Kabul. —AFP