Kabul - At least five police officers were killed Monday in
a shootout with private security guards hired by the US-led coalition
at a prosecutor's office in restive southern Afghanistan, the
government said.
Police raided the guards' company and arrested its 41 personnel
for investigation after disarming them, Kandahar Governor Toryali
Wesa said after President Hamid Karzai called for the coalition to
hand over the guards involved in the killing.
'Police arrested 41 guards of the company and sent them to Kabul
for interrogation,' the governor said at a news conference.
He did not identify the company.
'Reports suggest that gunmen of a private security company
employed by coalition forces based in southern Afghanistan today
attacked the prosecutor's office of Kandahar province to release a
prisoner, but after facing resistance, opened fire on the police
officials,' said a statement released Monday the presidential office
in Kabul.
The police chief of Kandahar city, the capital of Kandahar
province, and the head of its Criminal Investigation Department were
among those killed, the presidential office and officials in the
restive province said.
The US military said in a statement, however, that no coalition
troops or personnel affiliated with the NATO-led International
Security Assistance Force were involved. It described it as a 'purely
Afghan' incident.
The presidential office said five police officers were killed
while local officials, including Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of the
provincial council and President Karzai's brother, originally said
the death toll in the gunbattle was nine.
The circumstances surrounding the gunfire remained confused.
Earlier, however, a government official said on the condition of
anonymity that security contractors hired by foreign forces and used
in military operations tried to remove a prisoner detained in the
prosecutor's office.
The provincial prosecutor called on the police for help to prevent
the contractors from taking the prisoner and fighting started as soon
as the police chief exchanged harsh words and insults with the
contractors, the source said.
President Karzai strongly condemned the shootings in his hometown,
which is also the Taliban's former stronghold, and ordered an
investigation.
'President Karzai said that such incidents negatively impact the
state-building process in Afghanistan and called upon coalition
forces to avoid actions that weaken the government,' the statement
from his office added.
There was no indication that the Taliban was involved in the
shooting.
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