(Last Updated On: July 2, 2019)

The Qushtepah district of northern Jawzjan province collapsed to the Taliban militants late on Monday night, a provincial council member claimed.

Mohammad Sharif, a secretary for the provincial council told Ariana News that the insurgents captured the district after several hours of heavy clashes with the Afghan security forces at around 10 pm on Monday.

At least 50 Afghan forces were killed and 150 others including army soldiers and security forces were surrendered to the militants after the district fell to the hand of Taliban, Sharif said.

Meanwhile, security officials said that their connections have been cut off with the district since last night.

However, the Taliban in a statement claimed that their fighters have captured the district, as a result, 10 soldiers have been killed, 25 injured and 78 others were detained by the militants. </s> KABUL: The Taliban group stormed the Afghan security and defense forces outposts in Qush Tapa district of northern Jawzjan province, where there is conflicting reports over death casualties of the security forces.

Ministry of Defense in a statement said the Taliban fighters were pushed back from the district and rejected the district was fallen to the control of the Taliban.

30 Taliban insurgents, including their commanders, were killed and 10 others were wounded, the statement added.

However, Mohammad Sharif, secretary of the provincial council, said that the district was overrun by the Taliban group during which 150 Afghan soldiers were captured and 50 others were killed.

“The Taliban took control of Qush Tapa district at 10 P.M. local time,” said Mohammad Sharif.

Wahid Wajdan, Jawzjan police chief has confirmed that the contacts with local officials of Qush Tapa district has been cut off. “I neither confirm nor reject the fall of the district at this time.”

On the other hand, the Taliban group told reporters in a message that insurgents took control of the district, killing 10 security forces, and capturing 78 other security forces. The clashes also wounded 25 security forces, according to the Taliban.

Qush Tapa is 70 Km away from the provincial capital of Jawzjan province and the Taliban group were highly active in the province. </s> Afghan government officials said on Thursday that the Taliban killed 30 policemen in an attack in Farah province late on Wednesday, AP reported. Provincial council member Dadullah Qani said the Taliban attacked the police outpost in the Khaki Safed district on Wednesday night, and the assault continued for four hours.

Lawmaker Samiullah Samim said in Kabul that Farah District Police Commander Abdul Jabhar was among those killed in the attack.

ToloNews reported that local officials in Farah province said the Taliban captured three checkposts in Shewan, Garani and Aab Khormay areas of Bala Blook district. Security forces also confirmed casualties, but did not assign a number.

Mohibullah, a spokesperson for Jabhar added that there were clashes in Peshtkoh district overnight, in which both Taliban militants and security force personnel were killed.

Meanwhile, at least nine Afghan Army soldiers and five Taliban militants were killed during clashes in Sayedabad district of Maidan Wardak province on Wednesday, Pajhwok Afghan News reported. Hekmat Durani, the spokesperson for the provincial governor, said that Taliban insurgents stormed a security post in Mangali area of the district and temporarily captured it, but were repelled. </s> Afghan officials say 10 police officers and the wife of a police commander have been killed in an attack in the northern province of Zawzjan.

Mohammad Reza Ghafori, spokesman for the provincial governor, said the officers were ambushed on February 24 as they were coming out of a mosque in the Darzab district.

A local police commander was among the dead and his wife was also killed when she rushed to the scene, Ghafori added.

Brigadier General Rahmatullah Turkistani, the provincial police chief, said four militants were killed and six others wounded in retaliatory firing.

Ghafori blamed the attack on Islamic State (IS) militants, but the Taliban claimed responsibility.

IS-linked militants have been active in eastern Afghanistan, but have recently begun operating in the north of the country as well. The Taliban frequently target officials and security forces across Afghanistan.

Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and Pajhwok </s> The Islamist Taliban in northern Afghanistan has captured a strategically important district near the border with Turkmenistan and threatened a provincial capital, killing dozens of Afghan troops in a series of battlefield attacks.

 

 During the past three days, the insurgents stepped up battlefield attacks across the country and have overrun territory and killed more than 80 personnel of the Afghan National Defense and Security Force (ANDSF) being trained and advised by the U.S. military.

 

 Officials said Monday Taliban fighters stormed Khamyab district in Jowzjan province from multiple directions and captured it overnight. Provincial police chief, General Faqir Mohammad, told VOA government forces withdrew from the area to avoid civilian casualties.

 

 The officer declined to discuss casualties among his forces, though reports said the fighting left eight police personnel dead and several others wounded.

 

 Clashes were raging in parts of Khamab and telecommunication services remained suspended since the fighting erupted for the control of the key district, according to members of Jowzjan provincial councils. The fighting is taking place about 170 kilometers north of the provincial capital of Sheberghan.

 

 Separately, the Taliban's a so-called "red unit" commando force stormed police outposts in Dashti-e-Archi area in Kunduz province and killed 18 security forces, Afghan officials said. The attack near the provincial capital, also called Kunduz, wounded 24 police personnel. Kunduz has changed hands several times in the past three years and it remains under pressure from the Taliban.



Intense fighting was also raging in the nearby Sar-e-Pul province where a multi-pronged Taliban offensive late Sunday captured army and police posts around the provincial capital. Clashes were ongoing in the area and the city, also called Sar-e-Pul, could collapse to the Taliban unless reinforcements arrived in time, warned a provincial government spokesman. 

 

 The fighting in Sar-e-Pul and Jowzjan has closed the main highway linking the two northern provinces. Insurgents also killed at least 14 Afghan policemen and wounded six others in a raid on police posts in Dara Suf district of northern Samangan province.

 

 Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for attacks in northern provinces,saying they killed more than 100pro-government forces, though the rebel battlefield details are often inflated.

 

 Meanwhile, Afghan and Taliban officials made conflicting claims Monday about who was in control of Dai Mirdad district in the central eastern Maidan Wardak province.

 

 The Taliban assaulted the district a day earlier and killed 13 security forces, including the police chief of Dai Mirdad.

 

 Provincial council members have confirmed the insurgents entered the district center late Sunday following heavy clashes with government forces. Afghan officials, however, denied reports they have lost Dai Mirdad to the Taliban.

 

 The Baghlan-e-Markazi district in another troubled northern Afghan province of Baghlan is also under attack from the Taliban.



Officials confirmed on Sunday that ongoing clashes in the areas killed more than 20 Afghan security forces while more than a dozen army and police checkpoints as well as several surrounding villages have fallen to the Taliban.

 

 The Taliban has held more Afghan territory than at any time since the 2001 U.S. military invasion of the country. The Afghan government currently "controls or influences" around 56 percent of the country while the rest is controlled or hotly contested by the Taliban, according to American military assessments.

 

 While Afghan forces are struggling to combat the Taliban, militants linked to the regional branch of Islamic State, known as Khorasan Province (ISK-P), have also increased attacks, particularly against the country's minority Hazara Shi'ite community, adding to the problems of the Kabul government. IS-plotted suicide bombings, many of them hitting the capital, Kabul, have killed scores of Afghan civilians in recent weeks. </s> GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Taliban militants over-ran a district in Afghanistan's Ghazni province on Thursday, killing more than a dozen people including the district's governor before retreating, a police official said.

 Ghazni's Khawaja Omari district was considered one of the province's safest areas. 

 The militants killed district governor Ali Dost Shams, his bodyguards, seven police and five government intelligence agents, said Ramazan Ali Mohseni, deputy police chief in Ghazni. At least 45 to 50 militants were killed, he said.

 The Taliban then torched the district headquarters, he said. Later, the Taliban left the headquarters and government security forces returned.

 Bodies wrapped in blankets were laid on the ground of the district compound by late Thursday morning.

 Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement 20 police officers were killed in the attack. 

 Khawaja Omari is near the provincial capital, also called Ghazni, a city of 150,000 people 150 km (95 miles) southwest of the Afghan capital, Kabul.

 Fighting in Afghanistan traditionally increases in the spring when warmer weather melts snow blocking mountain passes, increasing the mobility of the insurgents.

 The Taliban usually announce the launch of a spring offensive in April.

 

 (Reporting by Mustafa Andalib in Ghazni, Afghanistan; Writing by Rod Nickel; Editing by Nick Macfie) </s> KABUL—At least 10 police officers and the wife of a police commander were killed in an ambush by Daesh militants in northern Zawzjan province, a provincial official said.

Mohammad Reza Ghafori, spokesman for the Zawzjan provincial governor, said Saturday that the police officers were ambushed Friday as they were coming out of a mosque. The wife of the police commander heard about her husband being shot and rushed to the scene, where she was also killed.

Daesh-linked militants have been active in Afghanistan’s eastern regions, but have recently begun operating in the north of the country as well.

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry said in a statement that around 38 militants, including 23 Daesh fighters, were killed in separate operations conducted by Afghan security forces in the eastern and southern regions of the country over the past two days.

Eight other militants were wounded and six arrested in the operations, which were conducted in districts across the Nangarhar and Helmand provinces, the statement added. </s> Earlier this month ISIL was blamed for killing six Afghan Red Cross employees in Jowzjan province [File: AFP/Getty Images] Ten police officers and the wife of a commander have been killed in an ambush outside a mosque by Taliban fighters in northern Afghanistan. Mohammad Reza Ghafori, spokesman for the Jowzjan provincial governor, said on Saturday the police officers were attacked on Friday as they were coming out of the mosque.

Start the conversation, or Read more at Al Jazeera. </s> The Taliban militant group has seized a district center in Afghanistan’s northern province of Kunduz and launched a bomb attack on an army base in the southern province of Helmand, killing at least six people, officials say.

According to Sayyed Assadullah Sadat, a provincial council member in Kunduz, the militants captured the governor’s house and took control of the police headquarters in Aq Tapa in Qala-e Zal district of the volatile province on Saturday.

He added that Afghan government troops had already engaged in fierce battle with the occupying militants to drive them out.

Meanwhile, Taliban claimed in a statement that their militants had also seized control of 10 security check posts and a market in Qala-e Zal, north of Kunduz city.

At the other end of the country, in Helmand, Taliban militants drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a military base in Nad Ali district, the blast of which killed at least four civilians and a soldier, said a statement released by the provincial governor’s office on Saturday.

On Friday night, Taliban militants also destroyed a house by rocket fire in Hoodi area of Goshta district in the eastern province of Nangarhar. According to Attaullah Khogyani, the provincial spokesman, the attack killed at least five civilians, including three women, and wounded two other women and a child.

Earlier this week, Taliban militants announced the official start of their annual spring raids, seen across the crisis-hit country recently as warmer weather has set in, continuing the heavy fighting, particularly against the government soldiers.

The escalation in attacks by Taliban showed the group was barely interested in an offer of peace talks by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. Taliban made no mention of the offer that came in February, showing that the group may even intensify its devastating campaign across Afghanistan.

The US-backed Afghan government is under pressure on multiple fronts this year as it prepares to hold long-delayed legislative elections even as its security forces struggle to get the upper hand on the battlefield and prevent civilian casualties.

Airstrikes by US warplanes have also significantly increased in recent months against the purported positions of Taliban and other militant outfits, including the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group, in the country.

Earlier this year, the UN figures showed that more than 10,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the Afghan conflict last year. While the main cause of civilian deaths was said to be militant bombings, the report said US airstrikes as well as government forces had also caused casualties.

US-led forces invaded Afghanistan and toppled a ruling Taliban regime some 17 years ago. That ongoing war has failed to bring stability to the country despite the presence of thousands of foreign forces. A recent survey found that the Taliban militants were active in two-thirds of the country and were fully controlling four percent of it.
Taliban militants overran the Qush Tepa district of Jowzjan Province, resulting in the deaths of over 50 Afghan soldiers. Many others were captured.