KANDAHAR - Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan shot and killed a plainclothes policeman and wounded five other Afghans on Saturday, mistakenly thinking they were attackers, the force said.
International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops shot at the Afghans in two incidents that took place 40 minutes apart in a Taliban stronghold in southern Kandahar province where troops come under regular attack.
The incidents came days after Canadian troops with ISAF shot and killed a young boy aged about 10 who was on a motorbike that broke through a security cordon around a suicide blast in Kandahar city on Thursday.
The first shooting on Saturday involved a civilian truck carrying armed men in civilian clothes who later turned out to be plainclothes policemen, spokesman Major Scott Lundy told AFP.
The truck sped towards an ISAF position near Zari district of Kandahar province, about 25 kilometres (16 miles) west of Kandahar city, and "failed to heed repeated warnings to stop," he said.
"After hand signals and warning shots drew an aggressive response from the rapidly approaching unmarked truck, ISAF troops at the checkpoint fired to stop the vehicles advance and in self-defence," an ISAF statement said.
Lundy said the men in the vehicle had started shooting. "ISAF returned fire and in the ensuing exchange of gunfire, five Afghans were injured. There were no ISAF casualties," he said.
One of the men later died from his wounds.
"An initial review of the incident determined that the men in the vehicle were armed Afghan police dressed in plain clothes. Neither their vehicle nor their appearance readily identified them as such," he said.
About 40 minutes afterwards, two people on a scooter approached the same ISAF position at high speed.
"They were warned to stop and failed to do so. As a result of this, warning shots were fired and one of the people on the scooter was wounded by a single gunshot," Lundy said.
The five wounded people were being treated at the main foreign military base in southern Afghanistan and the Kandahar Air Field.
"It is deeply sad that this apparently friendly force on friendly force engagement occurred and there will be an investigation," Lundy said.
The Canadian military confirmed that the soldiers involved were Canadian troops.
ISAF took over command of foreign forces in southern Afghanistan on July 31, assuming command from a US-led coalition that lost support among the public because of civilian casualties in efforts to defeat Taliban insurgents.
The NATO-led troops have come under regular attack, especially in Kandahar, which is the birthplace of the Taliban and home to some of the extremists' most substantial strongholds.
The coalition has admitted that its troops killed a child aged between 10 and 12 during a firefight Thursday that it said killed seven Al-Qaeda operatives in the eastern province of Kunar.
The child was near men who opened fire on a coalition unit and was caught in the return fire, as was a woman who was wounded, it said.
President Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation into claims the seven dead men were civilians.
08/26/2006 17:25 GMT