Coalition soldier fatally shot in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A soldier with the American-led coalition was shot to death in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday by an assailant wearing an Afghan army uniform, the international command said.

The International Security Assistance Force did not release other details about the shooting, including its location or the victim’s nationality. However, a spokesman for the governor of Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan said an Afghan service member had shot an unidentified American soldier at Forward Operating Base Rushmore in the provincial capital of Sharan.

The spokesman, Mukhlis Afghan, said he could not confirm that the American soldier had died. He said the shooter was alive, but he was not certain whether the shooter had escaped or was captured. He said U.S. and Afghan authorities have launched a joint investigation into the attack.

ISAF said it had “secured the scene.”

The shooting was the latest of many such attacks by Afghan forces, both military and police. An American soldier was fatally shot by an Afghan soldier in Paktia province Sept. 26. In that attack, the Taliban claimed responsibility, suggesting that the Afghan National Army soldier had been a Taliban plant.

So-called insider attacks killed 62 people in 47 incidents in 2012, according to NATO, and 35 people in 21 attacks in 2011.

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Baktash is a special correspondent.