Uniformed Afghan kills 3 U.S. troops in apparently premeditated assault

KABUL, Afghanistan — A gunman in an Afghan uniform shot and killed three American service members in southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Friday, in the latest of an intensifying spate of so-called green-on-blue attacks.

An Afghan official in Helmand province, where the shooting took place, said the three men killed were members of the U.S. special operations forces, and that they were deliberately lured to their deaths by a police commander who invited them to dinner Thursday night at his checkpost. The Taliban claimed responsibility and said the gunman had defected to the insurgency.

The apparently premeditated nature of the attack added an alarming new dimension to the phenomenon of Afghan police and soldiers turning their weapons on Western mentors. The NATO force has disclosed 28 such deaths so far this year, and the latest shooting, in Helmand