A US general was shot and wounded in a Taliban-claimed attack on a high-level security meeting last week that killed a powerful Afghan police chief, NATO’s mission in Afghanistan said Monday.

Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley was among 13 wounded when a gunman wearing an Afghan security forces uniform opened fire on the gathering that included General Scott Miller — the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan — in the southern city of Kandahar.

Miller was unhurt in the shooting inside the heavily fortified Kandahar provincial governor’s compound that NATO’s Resolute Support described as an “Afghan-on-Afghan incident”.

General Abdul Raziq, an anti-Taliban strongman credited with keeping a lid on the insurgency in the south, was killed along with the provincial intelligence chief and an Afghan journalist.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Miller and Raziq were the targets. But American officials denied the US general was a target.

Smiley suffered non-life threatening gunshot wounds and was “in Germany receiving further treatment”, Resolute Support confirmed.

Smiley arrived in Afghanistan in August to head a Resolute Support mission called “Train, Advise, Assist and Command – South” based in Kandahar.

That the Taliban could mount a deadly insider assault in such a secure location has rattled Afghanistan, a country long used to high-profile targeted killings and violence.

Source: AFP