Gunmen
wearing Afghan military uniforms shot dead two Romanian soldiers in the
country's south Saturday, officials said, in the first insider attack
on foreign troops since the Taliban launched their spring offensive last
month.
The
insurgents have so far not claimed responsibility for the attack in
Kandahar province, which highlights long-simmering tensions between
Afghan and foreign forces.
"Two
Resolute Support (NATO) service members died this morning when two
individuals wearing Afghan (security) uniforms opened fire... in
southern Afghanistan," the military coalition said.
"Resolute Support members returned fire and killed the shooters."
The
two soldiers were identified as Romanian, the defence ministry in
Bucharest said, adding that the incident occurred during a training
mission for Afghan police.
A
third Romanian soldier was left wounded in the incident and transferred
to a hospital in Germany, the ministry said in its statement.
The
attack comes after the insurgents last month announced the start of
their annual spring offensive, vowing "large-scale attacks" across
Afghanistan.
So-called
"green-on-blue" attacks -- when Afghan soldiers or police turn their
guns on international troops -- have been a major problem during NATO's
long years fighting alongside Afghan forces.
In
a similar attack in August last year, a man wearing an Afghan military
uniform shot dead two American soldiers in the southern opium-rich
province of Helmand.
And in April last year an American soldier was killed in a firefight between US and Afghan troops in eastern Afghanistan.
Western
officials say that most such attacks stem from personal grudges and
cultural misunderstandings rather than insurgent plots.
The
killings have bred fierce mistrust between local and foreign forces
even as the rate of such incidents has dropped in recent years.
NATO troops have adopted special security measures in recent years to try to counter the threat.
NATO
ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014, pulling out a
bulk of its troops although a 13,000-strong residual force remains for
training and counter-terrorism operations.
The
Afghan military, which has been built from scratch since the fall of
the Taliban regime in 2001, has also struggled with insider attacks,
high casualty rates and mass desertions.
Afghan
President Ashraf Ghani recently threatened diplomatic reprisals against
Pakistan if it refuses to take action against insurgent havens on its
soil.
His
unusually strong remarks were in response to a Taliban assault on a
security services office in the heart of Kabul, which left 64 people
dead in what appeared to be the deadliest attack on the Afghan capital
since 2001.
The
carnage on April 19 cast a pall over international efforts in recent
months to jumpstart Pakistan-brokered peace talks, which stalled last
summer after the Taliban belatedly confirmed the death of longtime
leader Mullah Omar.
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