Five Afghan Local Police officers were killed Monday in northern Afghanistan and a civilian contractor for NATO-led troops was gunned down in Kabul in insider attacks, officials said.
The attack in the capital was carried out by a woman in police uniform at a police compound, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. She was arrested.
This is believed to be the first case of a woman from the Afghan security forces killing a foreign soldier or military adviser. Almost 60 foreign soldiers have been killed in such "insider attacks" this year.
Meanwhile, a local police commander killed five officers at a checkpoint in the district of Qush Tepa in Jowzjan province. He then "fled and joined the Taliban, taking all the arms and ammunition from his dead colleagues," provincial police chief Abdul Aziz Ghairat said.
An ISAF official said the Kabul attack victim was a US military adviser for the Afghan police and the shooting took place inside police headquarters, but did not give any other details.
The compound houses several government offices, including those of the Kabul governor and police chief.
"The Afghan policewoman appeared to be acting with premeditation and crossed three checkpoints to get inside the highly secure enclave," broadcaster Tolo News said in an exclusive report citing Afghan sources.
It said the suspect was a 33-year-old married woman from Kabul who had lived as a refugee in Iran and Pakistan during the height of the civil war and the Taliban, before 2001.
She graduated from the police academy in late 2008 and was considered one of the top woman police cadets. She worked in the gender section of Interior Ministry, the report said.
She had recently visited Egypt on a government-sponsored trip, where she went missing for two days. She claimed she was lost, sources told Tolo News.
According to sources, the policewoman had wanted to see the police chief and governor on Monday. Both officials were out of the office.
The report also said she had confirmed with guards nearby that the US adviser was a foreigner, before shooting at him.
The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack in Jowzjan, which Ghairat said was carried out by Dur Mohammad, the police commander.
Qush Tepa was a volatile district controlled by Taliban militants until recently. The area in the relatively peaceful north-west has since come under government control, according to officials.
"He joined the mujahedin (Muslim freedom fighters) with eight weapons and three motorbikes," Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement.
The Afghan Local Police is a government-supported village militia force financed by the United States to protect remote areas where Afghan soldiers and national police are not available.