HERAT: An Afghan police commander and 12 junior officers have defected to the Taleban after poisoning seven comrades, government officials in the western province of Farah said yesterday.
The commander, named only as Mirwais, was in charge of a checkpoint in the Bala Boluk district when he and his unit defected to the Taleban and handed over their equipment and weapons, including military vehicles.
"He was a police commander for a checkpoint in Shewan village. He joined the Taleban with a Humvee, a Ranger (SUV), radios and 20 guns," said Abdul Rahman Zwandai, a spokesman for the Farah governor.
The seven police were poisoned because they refused to join the rebellion, he said. All were taken to the Farah hospital and an investigation would be launched.
Farah, bordering Iran, is one of western Afghanistan's most insecure provinces, although the west is relatively secure compared to insurgent strongholds in the east and south.
The defection was the first time that police had joined the Taleban and taken so much equipment with them, Zwandai said, and will worry Western backers looking to hand security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
But national intelligence officials denied reports in some Afghan media that two members of the country's High Peace Council, which leads government efforts to reconcile with the Taleban, had also defected to the insurgency.
"I'm not sure anyone from the HPC would have joined the Taleban," said National Directorate of Security deputy spokesman Shafiqullah Tahiri.
Thirteen Afghan police defect to Taleban
