News - Afghanistan

Four Afghan policemen were shot dead by their colleagues in the Gereshk district of Helmand province on Thursday night, local officials said.

The incident took place at a police outpost. The four police were killed by five other officers who had arrived as reinforcements, the district police chief Mohammad Toryali said Friday.

He said the men who were shot dead had recently joined the police force.

The attackers fled after the killing, he added.

Taliban spokesman Qari Jusuf Ahmadi claimed the attack on Friday and said the five had joined with the Taliban.

This year, so-called insider attacks in Afghanistan against local forces and Nato troops have dramatically increased.

The Nato commanders refer to such rogue attacks as "green-on-green" or "green-on-blue" -- green for Afghan forces and blue for Nato coalition forces.

It comes after Tuesday's insider attack in Helmand's Nar-e-Seraj district which killed two British Gurkha soldiers.

Nearly 60 foreign troops have been killed in this manner in Afghanistan this year in 40 attacks, compared to only 15 attacks in all of 2011.

There are around 103,000 international soldiers, mostly Americans, fighting insurgents in Afghanistan.