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NY DAILY NEWS  AP / APTN Above a screen grab of a video shows a casualty loaded into an ambulance before being taken to a base hospital. A rogue Afghan cop linked to the Taliban killed five British soldiers as they drank tea inside a military compound, officials said Wednesday. The attacker was on the roof of a Helmand province police checkpoint Tuesday afternoon and opened fire with an AK-47 rifle on the British soldiers, who returned fire. Six other soldiers and two Afghan policemen were wounded, NATO forces headquarters in Kabul said in a statement. Before the shooting erupted, the soldiers laid down their weapons and removed their helmets and body armor as
proof of their trust in their hosts, officials said. "It is our initial understanding that an individual Afghan policeman possibly acting in conjunction with one other started firing inside the checkpoint before fleeing from the scene," said British forces spokesman Lt. Col. David Wakefield. Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
"It may be that the Taliban have used an Afghan police member or they have infiltrated the Afghan police force and that is what we have got to look at," Brown said. The gunman fled the scene on a motorbike, sparking a manhunt in the Nad-e'Ali district. A Helmand police official said authorities searched through the night and on Wednesday for the attacker, whom he described as Kandahar police academy graduate who had worked as a police officer in the area for three years. The official spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation. U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of international forces in Afghanistan, said he discussed the shooting with Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, who "gave me his assurance that this incident will be fully and transparently investigated." Afghan President Hamid Karzai Karzai issued a statement condemning the killings and offering condolences to the people of Britain and the relatives of the soldiers. He ordered an investigation and instructed interior ministry officials to "bring those responsible to justice." "These are incidents that can happen anywhere," presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told the Associated Press. "You can't use this isolated incident to say that there is a problem with the police force of Afghanistan. In the U.S., people shoot up people in a shopping mall. There are crazy people everywhere." The attack brought the British death toll in Afghanistan to 229, making this the single bloodiest year for British armed forces since the Falklands War. Britain has 9,000 troops in the country, the second largest force after the U.S. Last month, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans to increase troop numbers by 500. "It was his job and he loved doing it. Nobody wants their family to go out there but it's what he wanted to do," William Ferrand, uncle of one of the dead, Sgt. Matthew Telford, 37, told The Mail newspaper in England. "He has made a career out of it. He only had three years to go."
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