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KANDAHAR - Afghan forces mistakenly opened fire on coalition soldiers in the early hours of Thursday, prompting return fire that wounded eight policemen, police said.
The Kabul headquarters of the US-led coalition said it was looking into reports of the incident in volatile southern Helmand province.
The incident comes two days after the coalition announced an investigation into possible "friendly fire" in the deaths of two coalition soldiers and injuries to four others and an Afghan troop in Helmand last month.
In Thursday's fighting, "Our policemen mistook the coalition troops as enemy forces and opened fire on them," Helmand police chief Abdul Rahman Saber said.
"They responded and eight of our policemen were injured," he said. Two of the men were in a critical condition.
A Canadian and an American soldier were killed in Helmand on March 29 in a fierce fighting that erupted after a coalition base was attacked.
Five other soldiers -- one US, one Afghan and three Canadian -- were wounded in one of the biggest attacks on a coalition base in months.
The coalition said on Tuesday that "after-action reviews" had raised the possibility of friendly fire.
Helmand is one of Afghanistan's most dangerous provinces for coalition troops helping to hunt down insurgents loyal to the Islamist Taliban government that was overthrown in late 2001.
More than 3,000 British troops are expected in the province in the coming weeks to take on insurgents and drugs traffickers.
The coalition is made up of about 20,000 troops under the command of the United States and is stationed mainly in insurgency-hit southern and eastern Afghanistan to help local troops hunt down Taliban fighters.
04/06/2006 14:25 GMT
