Afghan soldier opens fire on U.S. troops, killing 3

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — An Afghan soldier opened fire on U.S. troops in a restive eastern province of Afghanistan on Saturday, killing three and injuring another, authorities said.

A U.S. defense official said the shooting occurred in the Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangahar province, an area where both Islamic State and Taliban insurgents are contesting territory.

Early media reports suggested the assailant was an elite Afghan commando, although that was not confirmed. The gunman was killed by American troops, according to a security official in the province.

Achin has been the site of heavy fighting in recent months as U.S. special operations forces — including Army Rangers and Green Berets — have been working alongside Afghan commandos to route the Islamic State from the area. Three U.S. soldiers had died there earlier this year.

The Taliban are also active in the area, and there have been reports of clashes between the two insurgent groups in recent weeks. A Taliban spokesman sent a text message to journalists Saturday claiming the alleged assailant was a Taliban “infiltrator” of the Afghan army.

Allied commanders provided limited details. White House spokesman Raj Shah told reporters traveling with the President Donald Trump in New Jersey that Trump was “following the emerging situation in Afghanistan.”

Also Saturday, two Afghan border policemen were killed by U.S. aircraft fire during a joint operation in the southern province of Helmand. The U.S. military in a statement apologized for the deaths and said the incident was under investigation.

The three previous U.S. soldiers deaths in Achin accounted for the entirety of U.S. combat fatalities in Afghanistan in 2017. In early April, Staff Sgt. Mark R. De Alencar, 37, of Edgewood, Md., was killed by small-arms fire, followed by Sgt. Joshua P. Rodgers, 22, of Bloomington, Ill., and Sgt. Cameron H. Thomas, 23, of Kettering, Ohio, at the end of the month.

Rodgers and Thomas were killed during a joint AfghanU.S. raid on an Islamic State headquarters building. The Pentagon is investigating if they were mortally wounded by friendly fire. The raid resulted in the death of the emir of the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan, Abdul Hasib, according to the Pentagon and Afghan officials. More than 30 other militants were also killed.

Achin was the also site where U.S. special operations troops in April dropped the GBU-43, a 22,000-pound bomb known as the MOAB, on a purported cave complex where insurgents were believed to be hiding. The blast flattened a swath of the countryside.

The Afghan branch of the Islamic State, known as ISIS-K, is mainly composed of militants pulled from other groups and fighting it has become one of the main counterterrorism efforts for the United States in Afghanistan. It consists of an estimated 600 to 800 militants, located mainly in remote mountainous areas.