ARMY DEATHS: FIND THE BASTARD AND KILL HIM

ABOVE: Darren Chant, Matthew Telford, James Major, Steven Boote and Nicholas Webster-Smith

ABOVE: Major General Nick Carter

ELITE SAS commandos were last night hunting a rogue Afghan policeman who murdered five British soldiers.

They died when their cold-blooded killer – a secret Taliban hitman – opened fire with his AK47 as they sat drinking tea at a checkpoint in Helmand province.

The terrorist had infiltrated Afghan security forces being trained by Britain.

He fled on a motorbike after wiping out the troops, who had been living and working alongside the Afghans.

The soldiers did not stand a chance. As they trusted their Afghan colleagues, they had removed their body armour and helmets and laid down their weapons before the killer ambushed them. They were named last night after their families had been informed.

Warrant Officer 1st Class Darren Chant, Sergeant Matthew Telford, 37, and 18-year-old Guardsman James Major, all of the 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, died in the attack, along with Acting Corporal Steven Boote and Corporal Nicholas Webster-Smith, of the Royal Military Police.

Six other Brits were wounded, one seriously, along with two Afghan policemen.

They were hit as the killer sprayed the courtyard of a police compound in the Nad-e’Ali district with bullets.

Top troops from the SAS are now involved in the huge manhunt to track down the assassin, who has been identified as a policeman called Gulbuddin.

Sources in Helmand say he may have had an accomplice and had earlier been in a row with a local commander.

The Taliban yesterday claimed responsibility for the murders and Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted more traitors may have infiltrated the Afghan force. A spokesman for the insurgents said: “We want to sow mistrust between the Afghan National Police and foreign forces.”

That will send a chill down the spines of Britain’s 9,000 troops in Afghanistan who have to train and fight alongside supposedly friendly locals.

Paying tribute to the fallen yesterday, the PM pledged to carry on helping the Afghan security forces.

Mr Brown said: “It appears that they were targeted because they were engaged in what our enemies fear most.

“They were mentoring and strengthening Afghan forces to make Afghanistan more secure. While we step up and strengthen our security wherever we can, we will not stop doing what the Afghan Taliban fear most.

“The sacrifice of our military is great and our resolve must match it.” Tory leader David Cameron demanded an urgent review of security surrounding the “disturbing incident” to find out how the enemy managed to slip through vetting procedures and into police ranks.

Police chiefs in Helmand said the attacker had been an officer for three years.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas stunned MPs by claiming British troops fighting in Afghanistan were there in part to help control immigration.

He said the number of asylum seekers coming to the UK would “significantly increase” if troops were withdrawn.

But Tory MP Patrick Mercer said: “This is yet another distortion of what our troops are trying to achieve in this theatre.”

Major General Nick Carter, commander of Nato forces in southern Afghanistan, said our troops had a duty to trust the Afghan police.

He said: “The first point I would make is that we have to trust the uniform of the Afghan police. The second point I would make is that we will get better at this.”

He added: “We will make it perfectly possible for us absolutely to understand who we are working with because we will train them.

“And we will make sure they are capable of doing the job in the way that they need to do the job.”

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