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Afghan soldier kills two coalition troops, U.S. says

  • Story Highlights
  • Military says shooter wounded third service member, killed himself
  • Afghan defense minister says shooting is under investigation
  • Incident comes as Obama announces troop increase
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KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- An Afghan soldier reportedly shot and killed two coalition service members in northern Afghanistan on Friday, U.S. forces in Afghanistan said.

The military, which calls the incident the first of its type "in recent memory," said the shooter also wounded another service member and then killed himself. A fourth service member appeared to be unharmed but was taken to a medical facility for evaluation.

The military passed along comments from Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak, who expressed his condolences for the service members killed and wounded. He said that he was "saddened and deeply regretful this tragedy occurred" and that the incident was under full investigation.

Wardak said that "it is too early to speculate, but the investigation will bear out the truth" and that "full corrective action will be taken."

The incident comes as President Obama unveiled his plans on Friday to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. One of the efforts will be the deployment of 4,000 troops to train and improve the operations of Afghan security forces.

"For the first time, this will fully resource our effort to train and support the Afghan army and police," Obama said. "Every American unit in Afghanistan will be partnered with an Afghan unit, and we will seek additional trainers from our NATO allies to ensure that every Afghan unit has a coalition partner.

"We will accelerate our efforts to build an Afghan army of 134,000 and a police force of 82,000 so that we can meet these goals by 2011, and increases in Afghan forces may very well be needed as our plans to turn over security responsibility to the Afghans go forward," he said.

All About AfghanistanBarack ObamaThe Taliban

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