Kabul sources reported that an official said Taliban assault on two adjacent checkpoints in northern Afghanistan killed at least 30 soldiers and police, as life gradually returned to normal in parts of the eastern city of Ghazni after a massive insurgent attack last week, with sporadic gun battles still underway in some neighborhoods.
Meanwhile Mohammad Safdar Mohseni, the head of the provincial council in the northern Baghlan province, said the insurgents set fire to the checkpoints after the attack late last night in the Baghlan-I Markazi district. Dilawar Aymaq, a parliamentarian from Baghlan, confirmed the attack, which targeted a military checkpoint and another manned by the so-called local police, militias recruited and paid by the Interior Ministry. Furthermore Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack.
Moreover Afghan forces repelled the initial assault
and in recent days have struggled to flush the insurgents out of residential
areas where they are holed up and accordingly the U.S. and NATO have launched
airstrikes and sent military advisers to aid Afghan forces as they fight for
the city, which is just 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the capital, Kabul, and
has a population of some 270,000 people. Further the assault on Ghazni was
widely seen as a show of force ahead of possible peace talks with the United
States, which has been at war in Afghanistan for nearly 17 years.
