Taliban steps up attacks, killing or injuring over 400 Afghan forces in a week
- Afghanistan’s interior ministry said the Taliban carried out 222 attacks against security forces in the last week alone
- This comes after the government and Taliban signalled that they were getting closer to launching much delayed peace talks
.png?itok=arIb17P0)
“In the past one week, the Taliban carried out 222 attacks against the Afghan security forces, resulting in the death and injury of 422” personnel, interior ministry spokesman Tareq Arian said at a press conference.
He also accused the Taliban of targeting religious scholars in a bid to put “psychological pressure” on the Afghan government.
Bomb attacks on Kabul mosques that killed two prayer leaders this month were the work of the insurgents, Arian claimed.
“This has been the goal of the Taliban to target religious scholars, especially in the past two weeks,” Arian said, accusing the militants of being an “umbrella group for other terrorist networks”.
On Sunday, at least five people were killed and over a dozen others wounded in attacks. Militants stopped a passenger bus in Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, killing two members of the government forces, local officials said.
In an overnight attack on security checkpoints in the Qaysar district of Faryab province, also in the north, two members of the security forces were killed and another three wounded.
In the eastern province of Nangarhar, a roadside bomb killed a civilian and injured three others, the provincial spokesman said.
And at least 10 passengers of a minibus were wounded when they were caught in the crossfire during a brief clash between pro-government forces and Taliban fighters in Pol-e Alam, the capital of Logar province, two provincial councillors confirmed.
No group claimed that assault, which came just over a week after an Islamic State-claimed attack at a mosque on the edge of Kabul’s heavily fortified Green Zone killed a prominent prayer leader.
The Taliban condemned both attacks.
Meanwhile, the Defence Ministry claimed it had killed eight militants after they attacked security outposts in Paktika province on Saturday. The ministry confirmed that two soldiers were also wounded.
Afghan reporter killed as government says ready for Taliban dialogue
After initially reporting a drop in overall violence following the ceasefire, National Security Council spokesman Javid Faisal on Sunday said the Taliban “have not reduced, but rather increased their attacks across the country”.
The council on Saturday also charged that the insurgents had killed 89 civilians and wounded 150 in the last two weeks.
Hundreds more Taliban prisoners freed on last day of Afghan truce
The accusations come after the government and Taliban signalled that they were getting closer to launching much delayed peace talks.
President Ashraf Ghani has vowed to complete a Taliban prisoner release that is a key condition to beginning the negotiations with the insurgents aimed at ending nearly two decades of war.
The Taliban have largely refrained from launching major attacks on Afghan cities since February, when they signed a deal with the US meant to pave the way for the talks.
