KABUL (AFP) - Eight Afghan police were killed early Wednesday when Taliban militants apparently helped by an insider overran their checkpost in troubled southern Afghanistan, an official said. Daud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the local administration in Helmand province, blamed the insurgent group for the killings but said the militia had help from at least one police officer conspiring in the attack. The attackers were helped by one policeman who now has fled with his gun, he told AFP, referring to the attack in the Nahri Sarraj district of Helmand. Three other policemen are injured and the one who was a Taliban informant, the Taliban accomplice, has fled with the attackers, Ahmadi told AFP. Separately, a New Zealand special forces soldier was shot dead in Afghanistan while taking part in an operation against insurgents near the capital Kabul, Prime Minister John Key said Wednesday. The soldier, who has not been named, is the third New Zealander - and the second member of the elite Special Air Services (SAS) unit - to be killed in Afghanistan this year. Key said the death was a reminder of the volatile and dangerous conditions New Zealand soldiers still faced in Afghanistan.