Taliban agent kills 9 at Afghan base

KABUL -- Like hundreds of thousands of Afghan men, he volunteered in the national army, ran drills in the mud, carried an automatic rifle, and worked alongside coalition mentors struggling against a hard-core insurgency.

But he was not one of them.

Yesterday, he walked into a meeting of NATO trainers and Afghan troops at Forward Operating Base Gamberi in the eastern province of Laghman and detonated a vest of explosives hidden underneath his uniform.

Five NATO troopers and four Afghan soldiers were killed in the deadliest sleeper agent assault.

Four Afghan soldiers and three interpreters were wounded in yesterday's attack.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing and said the soldier was a sleeper agent who joined the army a month ago, a contention confirmed by an Afghan army official.

"Today, when there was a meeting going on between Afghan and foreign soldiers, he used the opportunity to carry out the attack," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email to reporters.

Attacks by insurgents donning security uniforms are a relatively rare but recurrent problem as NATO and Afghan forces work more closely together. -- AP