Thu 17 June 2021:
Clashes between the Afghan army forces and Taliban fighters in the Faryab province in the country’s north claimed at least 23 lives on the side of the armed forces, an anonymous security source told the TOLOnews outlet on Thursday.
A clearing operation in the Dawlat Abad district launched by the security forces on Wednesday led to heavy hostilities.
“At least 23 commandos were killed and six policemen were wounded in the clashes,” the source said, adding that the military relocated from the district center to another area after the unrest.
The source also noted that Sohrab Azimi, a retired genera, and son of the former spokesman for the defense ministry, was among the deceased.
According to the media outlet, the district center has been taken over by Taliban militants a week ago.
Unprecedented peace talks between the insurgents and Afghan government continue to flutter, and as violence rages across Afghanistan, militants claim to have taken nearly 30 districts since the US began its final troop withdrawal in early May.
They are now present in almost every province and are encircling several major cities — a strategy the militants employed in the mid-1990s when they overran most of Afghanistan until ousted by a US-led invasion after the 2001 September 11 attacks.
“When the Americans leave they (the government forces) won´t survive even for five days,” said Misbah, who describes himself as a Taliban public health official in Ghazni. He took AFP on a tour of a hospital in Andar district captured by the militants — its walls pockmarked with bullet holes.
“When the masters have been defeated, the slaves cannot fight the Islamic Emirate,” he said, rattling off a series of orders over the radio.
-FILE PHOTO
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