Defecting from the Afghan police or military forces and joining the Taliban is just something that happens a lot. Today’s story however is a bizarre case, as the two police defected months ago, joined the Taliban, then wandered back a few days ago asking to return to work.
And the Afghan National Police in Kandahar Province cheerfully let the two defectors back into the fold, gave them new guns and sent them off to work. This lasted a few days, before the two defectors attacked their sleeping colleagues at the police post, killing seven.
Provincial Police Chief Abdul Raziq says that the security forces are now hunting the two men, who disappeared after killing everybody else in the post, and concedes that they probably defected again.
Insider attacks have been a growing problem in Afghanistan, with Taliban regularly infiltrating the security forces, carrying out an attack and them leaving. It remains to be seen if this is an isolated incident, or if the Taliban has so many people infiltrating at any given time that they simply have to start making the people do it multiple times.