Two British servicemen have been shot dead in southern Afghanistan by members of the Afghan national police force, the Ministry of Defence has said. One was a soldier from 1st Battalion Welsh Guards and the other an airman from the Royal Air Force. The MoD said the two had been providing security near a base in the Lashkar Gah district of Helmand province. Their next of kin have been informed. The number of UK military deaths in Afghanistan since 2001 is now 414. The men, who were serving as part of an advisory team, were killed on Saturday as they provided security for a meeting with local officials near Patrol Base Attal. Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he believed one of the gunmen was then killed by his Afghan police colleagues, while a second escaped. Roadside bomb He told BBC One's Andrew Marr show so-called green-on-blue attacks - in which members of the Afghan security forces attack international allies - were rare, and the motivation for the latest incident remained unclear. "British forces work alongside Afghan forces every day with thousands of contacts with them every day," he said. "This is a country that has an insurgency going on in it and, sadly, occasionally, these events occur. "We don't yet know what the motive was, we don't yet know whether this was an insurgent who'd infiltrated the police or whether it was a policeman who simply had a grievance of some kind. "This is a society where people traditionally settle grievances by violence." The sacrifice British troops were making in Afghanistan was for "our own national security", he said. The spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Maj Ian Lawrence, said: "The thoughts and condolences of everyone serving in the Task Force are with their families and friends." Earlier, a Nato spokesman suggested the gunmen were insurgents dressed as police officers, but a local police spokesman said they had been members of the national force for a year. The attacks come a day after a Nato soldier was shot dead in Kunar province. His assailant was wearing an Afghan army uniform. There have been 15 green on blue incidents so far this year, with 22 deaths - mostly Americans, with 13 incidents and 35 deaths in 2011. A dozen British service personnel have been killed in such attacks since 2009. The BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says some are carried out by Taliban infiltrators, but others by Afghan soldiers apparently spurred by anger at the actions of Nato troops, such as the revelations of US troops burning Korans earlier this year. Afghan intelligence officials have told the BBC's Bilal Sarwary the Taliban want to create a climate of mistrust where Afghan and Nato soldiers cannot work together. He said the latest development had worried Afghan officials. He added that they have insisted measures were in place to prevent such attacks.
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