British troops kill Afghan policeman

British soldiers from the Coldstream Guards leaves for a patrol from a Forward Operating Base (FOB) in Central Helmand province November 15, 2007. British troops shot dead one Afghan policeman and wounded another in southern Afghanistan, the officials said on Thursday.

KABUL (Reuters) - British troops shot dead one Afghan policeman and wounded another in southern Afghanistan, the officials said on Thursday.

NATO forces opened fire on an Afghan National Police (ANP) checkpoint in the provincial capital of Helmand overnight, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.

British troops in Helmand confirmed the incident.

"I can confirm that an ANP was sadly killed and another wounded. Also a British soldier was wounded," said Lieutenant Colonel Simon Miller, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand. "The investigation is ongoing."

Afghanistan's interior minister has travelled to Helmand for the investigation.

Britain has some 7,800 troops in Afghanistan, most of them in Helmand, a largely desert province cut in two by a strip of lush fertile land which produces nearly half the world's opium.

Some 6,000 people were killed in Afghanistan last year as Taliban militants clashed with Afghan and international forces and launched around 140 suicide bomb attacks in their campaign to oust the pro-Western Afghan government and eject foreign troops.