New attacks linked to a spreading Taliban-led insurgency killed 29 people including seven civilians and seven policemen over the weekend, authorities said on Sunday. In the deadliest, the Islamist fighters attacked a district headquarters in the south-western province of Farah on Saturday, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Naeem Popal told AFP.
"Five policemen were martyred and eight Taliban were killed," he said, adding that an unknown number of the militants were also wounded in the fighting in Push Rod district.
Separately, the fighters ambushed a convoy of the Afghan army and police and International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the neighbouring district of Bala Buluk, also Saturday, an army spokesman said. "Two policemen and six Taliban were killed in the firefight after the attack and nine Taliban were wounded," said the spokesman, Abdul Basir Ghori.
In south-eastern Ghazni province, a vehicle of shopkeepers returning to their district on Saturday after purchasing goods hit a roadside bomb, the Andar district chief said.
Five people including the driver were killed, said the official, Muhammad Yousuf Siraji, blaming the "enemies" whom he said had intended to hit security forces.
In Andar on Sunday, Taliban attacked a logistic convoy and killed an Afghan guard, provincial spokesman Ismail Jehangir said. He also reported that a teacher had been assassinated in the province on Saturday but it was not clear by whom.
Also Sunday, a suicide attack on police near the eastern town of Jalalabad killed an eight-year-old child, provincial government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said. Five more civilians and four police were wounded, he said.
The Taliban have been able to regroup after being removed from government in late 2001 and are fighting a rising insurgency, also setting up their own political structures in all provinces of the country.
They often use hit-and-run attacks as well as suicide and roadside bombings against the Afghan and international forces, with civilians working for the government or foreign troops also in their sights and passers-by often hit.
Deputy interior minister Munir Mohammad Mangal told reporters in Kabul Sunday that 49 civilians were killed and 122 wounded in insurgent violence across the country in the past week. Eighteen policemen and 84 militants were also killed, he said. Another 63 suspected insurgents were arrested, the minister said.
The rebels had also planted at least 88 roadside bombs in the past week of which 42 have exploded, he said. The Taliban are particularly active in southern and eastern Afghanistan. They control a handful of districts in the southern province of Helmand, where British and US troops have recently stepped up operations against them. Afghan security forces, helped by nearly 90,000 international troops, have intensified efforts to push back the rebels from their strongholds with a view to securing the presidential polls scheduled for August 20.
Comments
Comments are closed.