Afghan policeman kills NATO soldiers

Almaty. April 5. Kazakhstan Today - Two NATO soldiers have been shot dead by an Afghan border policeman inside a compound in northern Afghanistan, local officials say, Kazakhstan Today reports.

A "rogue" Afghan border policeman shot dead two foreign soldiers on a training mission in northern province Faryab on Monday, and hundreds took to the streets for a fourth day of protests against the burning of a Koran by a fundamentalist U.S. pastor, Reuters reported.

The shooting was the latest in a string of attacks by Afghan security forces against their NATO mentors, but senior border police said the 23 year-old might have been driven by anger over the desecration of Islam's holy book rather than support for militants' fight against foreign troops.

"It is not clear whether he was inspired by the Taliban, or by the burning of the holy Koran," General Habibullah Sayedkhil, commander of the border police in the north, told Reuters.

The man, who fled after the shooting, had over two years experience in the force and was a disciplined policeman who had not shown signs of extremism, said Najmuddin Sardar, deputy commander of the border police where he served.

Originally from Faryab province, his family had moved to the large northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, Sardar added.

A Taliban spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to say whether the group was responsible for the attack, referring questions to a second representative who could not be reached.

Across other parts of Afghanistan protests continued against the actions of radical fundamentalist Christian preacher Terry Jones, who supervised the burning of a Koran in front of about 50 people at a church in Florida on March 20.

Up to a thousand angry residents in eastern city Jalalabad blocked the main highway to Kabul, set alight effigies of Jones and shouted slogans like "death to America," said Ahmad Zia Abdulzai, spokesman for the provincial governor.

Hundreds also held peaceful protests in neighboring Laghman and nearby Paktia provinces. In southern Helmand province, residents of Lashkar Gah were coming out for a demonstration when a thwarted suicide attack cleared the streets.

Police spotted two men driving into the central court and opened fire, the Helmand provincial governor's office said. One was hit and the other managed to detonate his explosives, injuring a policeman and two civilians, but no one was killed.

About 20 people have been killed and nearly 150 wounded over three days of protests in north and south Afghanistan that degenerated into violence, although other large gatherings in some parts of the country ended peacefully.

Twelve people died in Kandahar over Saturday and Sunday, when demonstrators waving white Taliban flags burned cars, attacked police, smashed shops and sacked a girls' high school.

On Friday, seven foreign U.N. staff and five Afghan protesters were killed after demonstrators overran their office in normally peaceful Mazar-i-Sharif city in the north.

Western political and military leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama and the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, have condemned the Koran burning, as well as the violence that followed.

Photo: CBC News

This information may not be reproduced without reference to Kazakhstan Today. Copyright of materials of News Agency Kazakhstan Today.