Seven American soldiers were wounded and one Afghan soldier was killed in a shooting at a base in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, a US military official said.

The spokesman for US military command in Kabul denied reports by an Afghan official that Americans had been killed, but confirmed that seven US soldiers were wounded at Camp Shaheen, which is the headquarters of the Afghan army’s 209th Corps in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

At least one Afghan soldier was killed and another wounded, the official said, adding that he could not immediately say if the suspected gunman was among the dead or wounded.

Abdul Qahar Araam, spokesman for the Afghan army’s 209th Corps, said earlier: “An Afghan soldier shot and killed four American troops inside the base. We are investigating.”

The German military heads the multinational advising mission based in Mazar-i-Sharif. A spokeswoman for the German forces at the joint missions command in Potsdam said: “According to what we know right now, no Germans were affected.”



On 11 June, three US soldiers were killed and a fourth was wounded when an Afghan soldier opened fire at a base in Nangarhar province, in the east of the country.

In April, scores of Afghan soldiers were killed when militants breached security at Camp Shaheen, detonating explosives and shooting hundreds of troops at a mosque and dining hall on the base.

Coalition countries, led by the US, are considering sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan to help advise and assist Afghan forces struggling against Taliban and Islamic State militants. Defense secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday he would present options on Afghanistan to President Trump “very soon”.

On Thursday, a Trump administration official was reported to have said 4,000 more US troops would be sent to the country.