An Afghan policeman has shot dead three foreign staff at a training centre in western Herat province, Afghan officials say.
The gunman also injured their Afghan translator, the security and intelligence officials told the BBC.
The attacker, who is said to have worked for the regional police command, was subsequently killed by members of the US-led international force Isaf.
An Isaf spokesman told the BBC the contractors were civilian employees.
Maj Adam Wojack said the attacker had been wearing an Afghan army uniform.
He did not give the nationality of the three contractors killed in Sunday’s incident. One report said they were American but this has not been confirmed.
Afghan soldier kills three civilian police mentors in Herat province
Gunman shot dead after opening fire on Nato employees, with manhunt launched for possible second killer
Emma Graham-Harrison in Herat
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 July 2012 17.46 EDT
An Afghan soldier shot dead three foreigners who were training police recruits in the western city of Herat, sparking a manhunt across locked-down military bases in the area.
The shooting came at the end of a grim weekend for Nato, with five foreign soldiers killed by homemade bomb attacks across the south and the east of the country. Five Afghan employees of a Nato base in central Wardak province were also abducted and murdered by insurgents, Afghanistan’s Tolo television station reported.
The gunman who targeted the foreign police mentors – all civilians employed by Nato – was stationed at the regional police training centre on the outskirts of Herat. He was shot dead after he opened fire, but commanders initially believed that an accomplice had escaped.
Sirens in Nato’s regional headquarters, Camp Arena, ordered everyone to their accommodation while a search for the possible second killer was launched. Nato later said there had only been one attacker, but the camp remained on high alert.
“The attacker had been working in Herat for a year and a half. He was a guard at the police training centre,” according to provincial police chief Said Agha Saqeb.
An Afghan translator and another foreign trainer were injured in the attack, he added. The Nato-led coalition said only that three civilian employees were killed in western Afghanistan.
Saqeb said there were mostly US, Italian and Spanish trainers working at the training base, but he could not confirm the nationalities of the dead men.
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