A man in an Afghan army uniform opened fire at NATO troops on Friday, killing one foreign soldier, the alliance said. Twenty foreign NATO soldiers have been killed by Afghan colleagues in at least 15 similar incidents so far this year.
NATO ministers met Wednesday in Brussels to discuss plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and transfer responsibility for security to local forces by 2014 while ensuring the country will not be left vulnerable to a Taliban insurgency.
US and Afghan officials agreed on Sunday to put Afghan security in charge of night raids by special forces on insurgent hideouts. The raids have triggered anger among locals and been a source of rising tensions between Kabul and Washington.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Wednesday honoured the four French troops who were shot dead last week by a man wearing an Afghan army uniform. Their deaths have fuelled speculation that France may seek to accelerate its Afghan withdrawal.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé have agreed to work for the "continued strength" of the Afghan mission, after France weighed an early pullout following a deadly attack on its troops by an Afghan soldier.
French Defence Minister Gérard Longuet arrived in Kabul for high-level talks on Saturday as France suspended its mission in Afghanistan and weighed an early withdrawal after French troops were killed by an Afghan soldier.
NATO officials have tended to downplay "insider threat" - or cases of Afghan soldiers attacking their coalition partners. But that could change with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s harsh response to Friday's killing of four French troops.
France will temporarily suspend all training and combat operations in Afghanistan following a fatal attack on its troops, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced after four French soldiers died Friday in an attack by an Afghan army soldier.
An Afghan army soldier fatally shot four French NATO soldiers and wounded at least 16 others in eastern Afghanistan before being captured on Friday, said a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
At least six civilians were killed in a suicide attack near the gates to Kandahar airport, police sources said on Thursday. A Taliban spokesman said the bomber's target was foreign forces operating in the area.
