Afghan soldier shoots US, Italian troops: NATO

An Afghan soldier opened fire on foreign troops wounding one American and two Italian soldiers in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, military officials said. A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the US soldier was wounded, but few other details were available. I can confirm that an incident occurred today in western Afghanistan. I confirm an Afghan soldier opened fire on Italian and US forces, he said. ISAF said the incident was under investigation. An Italian military spokesman said the attack took place at 11:30am (0700 GMT) during a supply operation in Bala Murghab. The two Italian soldiers suffered only minor injuries and had already resumed their duties, the spokesman said. The soldier who opened fire was also wounded during the response from ISAF soldiers and the Afghan army who were at the scene. He was arrested immediately and is now under observation in the camp hospital, the military said. An investigation is under way to establish exactly what happened in the incident, the statement said. It was unclear if the incident was an accident or friendly fire and no other details were immediately available. Last month, an Afghan policeman shot dead five British soldiers in southern Afghanistan. The incident fueled questions about training programmes for the Afghan police and army, which are chasing massive government-set quotas and have been accused of dropping standards to achieve the numbers. Italy is among more than 40 NATO nations to deploy soldiers in Afghanistan to fight alongside the Afghan army against the Taliban, who are waging an intensifying insurgency. Around 113,000 foreign soldiers under US and NATO command in Afghanistan are due to be supplemented by another 36,800 during 2010. Italy this month announced plans to add 1,000 troops, which would bring its Afghan contingent to 3,800, making it one of NATO's largest. Six Italian soldiers, along with 10 Afghan civilians, were killed in a suicide car bomb attack in September, in what was one of the deadliest attacks on NATO troops in the more than eight years of the war.