Taliban infiltration very sophisticated: army

KABUL: The Taliban have a sophisticated system in place to infiltrate Afghanistan's security forces and vetting of recruits must be severely tightened, an Afghan army general said on Saturday.

Infiltration has come under sharper focus because of a string of fatal attacks by Afghan security forces on US soldiers since the burning of copies of the Qur'an at NATO base last month ignited widespread protests.

"Placing the rogues inside the army is well-planned by the enemies. The Taliban give them special training," General Abdul Hameed, top army commander for the southern region of Afghanistan, told Reuters by telephone.

"We must enhance intelligence gathering on the movements of recruits, tap their cellphones and we must find out who they are in contact with outside the army."

Two US soldiers were shot and killed on Thursday in an attack involving at least one Afghan believed to be a soldier and a civilian Western and Afghan officials said.

The killings at base in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan came less than a week after two senior US officers were gunned down in the Afghan Interior Ministry by what Afghan security officials say was a police intelligence officer, said Hameed.

Copyright Reuters, 2012