Fighting flared in eastern Afghanistan Monday as Taliban insurgents threatened to storm another provincial capital, two weeks after their lightning capture of northern Kunduz city which marked their biggest military victory in 14 years. The attempt to seize Ghazni city, south of Kabul, was repelled by Afghan forces but it raised security alarm bells as the resurgent militant group pushes to expand beyond its rural strongholds in the south of the country.
"This morning some 2,000 Taliban fighters launched attacks on Ghazni from several directions," deputy provincial governor Mohammad Ali Ahmadi told AFP. "They managed to come as close as five kilometres (three miles) to Ghazni city as fierce fighting flared but were quickly pushed back by Afghan forces." "The Taliban's effort to capture the city has failed," Assadullah Shujahi Ghazni, the deputy provincial police chief, told AFP.
The Taliban on Monday declared Tolo and 1TV, two of Afghanistan's biggest television networks, as legitimate "military targets". The group accused them of fabricating reports that Taliban fighters raped women at a female hostel during their occupation of Kunduz.