KABUL, 28 January 2005 — An Afghan soldier killed five others before being shot dead at a US military base in southern Afghanistan yesterday, the highest number of soldiers from the new Afghan Army killed in a single day.

“The soldier who initiated the shooting was returning from guard duty at the time of the incident and currently no information is available as to his motives,” the US military said in a statement.

Other Afghan soldiers returned fire and killed the man. Five Afghan soldiers were also wounded in the shooting and had been evacuated to a US military hospital in Kandahar.

An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said an investigation had been launched into the incident at the base at Girishk, in Helmand province.

The US-trained Afghan Army was formed after the overthrow of the Taleban government in late 2001.

Elsewhere in Helmand, Afghan Army and police units killed the commander of Taleban forces in the province and captured the deputy commander, a spokesman for the provincial governor’s office said yesterday.

Mohammad Wali Alizai said the Taleban commander, Mulla Mohammadullah, was killed in a firefight in the Musa Qala district of Helmand on Wednesday, while his deputy, Mulla Ghaffar, was wounded and handed over to US forces.

A US military spokesman could not confirm the report. Taleban officials were not immediately available for comment.

Alizai said Mohammadullah and Ghaffar were wanted for several attacks on US and Afghan forces in the region. One policeman was killed and a senior police official and two others were wounded in the fighting, he said.

Three policemen were injured in the attack on Wednesday, said provincial Deputy Governor Haji Mawin.

Mawin said the junior-level Taleban commander was believed to have staged several attacks on Afghan security forces and on US-led coalition troops. The remnants of the ousted Taleban regime are active in the south and southeast of the country, mainly in areas near the border with Pakistan.

There have been frequent attacks against Afghan forces and foreign troops since a US-led attack toppled the Taleban in late 2001 after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.

Some 18,000 US troops are engaged in the hunt for remnants of the Taleban militia and their Al-Qaeda allies in Afghanistan, mostly in the Pashtun south and east of the country that provided the radical movement with the backbone of its support.

The Taleban have vowed to fight on till they expel foreign troops from Afghanistan and defeat Afghan government forces.

US-led troops toppled the Taleban government after it refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.