The Taliban has captured a strategically important northeastern district in Afghanistan and inflicted fresh casualties on government forces elsewhere in the country, VOA news reports.
Fighting has intensified across many Afghan provinces with the advent of spring amid U.S.-led efforts to find a negotiated settlement with the Taliban to end the 18-year-old Afghan war.
Officials confirmed Saturday that Afghan security forces retreated overnight from the Arghanj Khwa district center in Badakhshan province following fierce clashes with Taliban assailants.
A provincial government spokesman told VOA the fighting killed at least four police personnel. A provincial council member, Tahira Alamyar, said that Friday night clashes killed around a dozen Afghan forces. She told VOA that Taliban insurgents also captured at least five security forces.
An insurgent spokesman said the Taliban has consolidated its control over the district after overrunning the district police headquarters, seizing several military vehicles and a “huge quantity of weapons/equipment.”
Separately, officials in southern Zabul province confirmed that at least eight police forces were killed Saturday morning at a security outpost in the Shahr-e-Safa district when one of their colleagues with suspected links to the Taliban turned his gun on them.
Missing forces
A senior security official in Badakhshan told VOA on condition of anonymity that the whereabouts of eight other Afghan forces were not immediately known. A provincial police spokesman, Asif Tokhi, confirmed the incident to VOA but would not share further details immediately.
The post is on the main highway linking the national capital Kabul to southern Afghan provinces.
A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for what he described as an “infiltrator operation” that killed eight pro-government forces and detained another.
Meanwhile, Afghan officials confirmed a Thursday night Taliban attack on the southeastern provincial capital of Ghanzi killed at least 15 security forces, including a district police chief.
The insurgents had tried to capture the city in August but were beaten back by Afghan forces with the help of American special forces and airstrikes.