KABUL, Afghanistan ? An Afghan soldier opened fire inside a U.S. military base Thursday, killing five of his Afghan comrades before another soldier gunned him down to end a shooting that a commander attributed to mental problems.
Elsewhere, Afghan police killed a suspected Taliban commander and captured his deputy in a shootout.
The U.S. military said the soldier attacked fellow Afghan National Army troops early Thursday morning in Helmand province. Another six Afghan soldiers were wounded.
?The soldier who initiated the shooting was returning from guard duty at the time of the incident and, currently, no information is available as to his motives,? the U.S. military said in a statement.
It said there was ?no evidence? the attack was the work of militants.
The injured were evacuated to the main American base in southern Afghanistan at Kandahar for medical treatment. There was no word on their condition.
No soldiers from the U.S.-led coalition were wounded in the attack, the statement said. Some 18,000 U.S.-led forces are still hunting al-Qaida and Taliban remnants mainly in southern and eastern Afghanistan.
Gen. Muslim Abed, a senior army commander in Kandahar, said the incident happened in a national army compound within the American base in Girishk, a town 220 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.
The soldier, who was from Kabul, had ?mental problems,? Abed said, without elaboration. ?He just entered a room and opened fire.?
Abed said he did not know the man?s name. The Defense Ministry said it was investigating the shooting.
Coalition forces often operate alongside the U.S.-trained Afghan army, which has 18,000 soldiers. It plans to recruit and train 70,000.
The army is meant to replace the private militias of warlords that still hold sway in much of the country, which is recovering from 25 years of conflict. A U.N.-sponsored disarmament campaign is working to dismantle the militias.
Meanwhile, Taliban commander Mullah Mohammed Ullah and his deputy, Mullah Mohammed Ghafar, were cornered as they traveled by motorbike in a village in Musa Qala district of Helmand province on Wednesday, an official said.
They opened fire when police tried to stop and arrest them, sparking a shootout in which Ullah and one policeman were killed and three other officers wounded, said Mohammed Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor.
Ghafar was wounded and taken into Afghan police custody for questioning.
Wali said the two men were Taliban leaders in Musa Qala and had led an attack on the district chief?s office last year that left at least four Afghan soldiers dead. He said they were also behind a bombing in the district that had killed a U.S. soldier and wounded another some months ago.
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