It was the first "insider" attack by a woman in a series of such attacks, which have seriously undermined trust between Nato forces and their Afghan allies in the fight against hard-line Islamist Taliban insurgents. The officer, named only as Nargis, was later arrested and prosecuted by the police. "Our investigation shows that Nargis is an Iranian national. After her marriage with an Afghan she managed to obtain an Afghan ID illegally and joined the police," interior ministry spokesman Sediq Seddiqi told reporters in Kabul.
"Our investigation also shows she was suffering from a psychological instability and our understanding from the past 24-hours investigation is that she is not associated with any armed opposition groups," he said. Mohammad Zaher, head of the criminal investigation department of Kabul, said Nargis had married an Afghan man 10 years ago and joined the police five years later. "In her confession she has said that she was tired of life and wanted to kill either the governor, the CID chief or the police chief," Zaher said. "But after she failed to get into the police HQ, she shot a foreign national she saw near the canteen," he said.