5 British soldiers shot dead in Afghanistan

Five British soldiers were killed and six others were wounded when an Afghan National Police officer opened fire on them, military officials said Wednesday.

The attack happened Tuesday afternoon in the Nad-e'Ali District of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province, Britain's Ministry of Defence said Wednesday. All the soldiers died of gunshot wounds sustained in the attack.

Initial reports show that the Afghan policeman initiated the fire on the soldiers, a ministry spokesman told CNN.

The soldiers had been living and working at an Afghan National Police checkpoint just outside Nad-e'Ali for the past two weeks, mentoring the policemen there, said Lt. Col. David Wakefield, a spokesman for Task Force Helmand.

An initial assessment of the attack shows that "an individual Afghan National policeman, possibly acting in conjunction with ... another, started firing inside the checkpoint before fleeing the scene," Wakefield said.

A joint team from NATO's International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan Ministry of Interior were investigating the incident, ISAF said.

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