Taliban launches ‘massive attack’ on one of Afghanistan’s main cities, Kunduz, as peace talks continue
- Taliban fighters have taken hospital patients as hostages after starting a multipronged assault on the strategically important city overnight
- This comes as talks with the US to end the nearly 18 year war continue in Qatar
The militants, who have demanded that all foreign forces leave Afghanistan, now control or hold sway over roughly half of the country and are at their strongest since their 2001 defeat by a US-led invasion. Such attacks are seen as strengthening their negotiating position.
Presidential spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said Afghan security forces were repelling the attack in parts of Kunduz – a strategic crossroads with easy access to much of northern Afghanistan as well as the capital, Kabul, about 335km away.
Seddiqi told reporters that the assault was “completely against the peace talks” and asserted that the militants were sheltering among civilians.
The Taliban was in control of the hospital in Kunduz and both sides in the fighting had casualties, provincial council member Ghulam Rabani Rabani told AP. He could not give an exact number.
