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KABUL: At least 18 local uprising forces were killed and two wounded in a Taliban attack on their outpost in the Khanabad district of northern Kunduz province, local officials said on Friday.
Mohammad Omar, a local official said the gun battle began at 9pm Thursday night and lasted to 11:30pm in which 18 soldiers were killed and two wounded, adding that two others managed to escaped, while the attackers took another three forces hostage.
Omar’s son and nephew were among those killed.
He said that reinforcements did not arrive on time in the battle scene that caused the casualties.
In Faryab, another province in the north, five government forces were killed in a Taliban ambush, provincial officials confirmed Friday.
Naqibullah Fayeq, provincial governor said that an army commander was among the dead.
Another official in the province speaking on condition of anonymity said that the Taliban fighters took 12 soldiers hostage.
Fayeq said that 15 attackers were also killed in the counterattack by the Afghan army and their bodies were left in the battlefield.
According to Fayeq, the Taliban retreated from the area and the security forces are completely controlling of the area.
However, 18 Taliban were killed including their red unit members and 10 others wounded in the operations carried out by the Afghan security forces in Sherzad district of Eastern Nangarhar province, provincial governor’s office said.
The Taliban did not commented on the incident, but Zabihullah Mujahid spokesman of the group said a woman was killed and four children wounded in a mortar shell attack.
Meanwhile, The Ministry of Defense said that 62 Taliban were killed and 23 others wounded yesterday in the airstrike of the Afghan security forces in Arghandab, Panjwai and Dand districts of Southern Kandahar province.
This comes as the peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban began in September in Doha, has so far less progress. Violence has intensified with targeted killings and magnetic bomb blasts killing and injuring civilians and security forces on the daily basis.
The Afghan government accuses Taliban of carrying out the attacks, but the militants have repeatedly rejected having hand in the recent targeted killings and magnetic bomb blasts.
