According to officials, an Afghan policeman attacked and killed three other officers in the Balkh Province overnight Saturday. He looted all weapons and ammunition from the checkpoint and fled.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid confirmed the incident, saying that
the attacker had joined the Taliban since carrying out the insider
attack. The Balkh Province is not generally a high combat area.
This is fairly standard Taliban strategy, whether with infiltrators or
not, as overrunning and securing police checkpoints and outposts has
been a main source of weapons and vehicles for them for much of the war.
Insider attacks have become a mounting problem in recent years, as the
Afghan government recruits security forces with very little screening,
making it easy for infiltrators to get in, get access to arms, and get
out.
Defections are common in that part of the world. We receive ISIS and Taliban defectors all the time, and in fact during the invasion CIA agents captured large chunks of territory using nothing but bricks of currency.
The reason for this is there’s no single overarching conflict. Just a lot of extortion, drug smuggling, abuse of authority, double dealing, embezzlement, and brawls. Any Afghan lead faction is just as abusive to their friends as to their enemies.
Which means this defection probably wasn’t ideologically motivated. He probably murdered his tormentors, looted the work place, then teamed up with his old boss’ enemies for protection.