KABUL, Afghanistan — Suspected Taliban infiltrators killed 20 Afghan policemen in two attacks on Wednesday, including a mass poisoning, in southeastern Afghanistan.In Ghazni Province, a group of 17 Afghan policemen who had just been trained by the Americans were drugged into comatose stupors by comrades while on duty and then shot to death in what appeared to be the single worst incident in a string of similar attacks, according to Afghan officials and an insurgent spokesman.
The attacks were just the latest in a series of such insider attacks, often involving the use of poisons or drugs to subdue other policemen, who are then shot while unconscious. Typically, rat poison is used but the victims are shot as well because the poison is not always fatal when delivered in food.