KABUL, Sept 29: Taliban fighters on Sunday overran a district headquarters in a remote and mountainous region of northern Afghanistan, their latest offensive in a campaign to regain territory as foreign troops withdraw from the country, according to officials.
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said a group of militants took over a government building after police evacuated the facility in Badakhshan province’s Karan wa Munjan district to prevent any civilian casualties.
“This year the enemy is trying to show their existence in northernparts of the country and that is one of the reasons that they are attacking Badakhshan province,” Mr Sediqi said.
He pointed to a successful operation last week to clear militants from another district, Wurdoj, and said preparations were under way to retake the headquarters building.
Mr Sediqi added that the militants were only controlling a single building, which had a very small police presence.
At least 18 Afghan policemen died in the Wurdoj operations along with 47 militants, the ministry said last week.
“We did have successful military operations in Wurdoj district and now as they have been defeated there and couldn’t keep their strongholds, so they made another choice and attacked Karan wa Munjan district,” Mr Sediqi said.
“There is no doubt that we had fewer police forces in the district, they were not more than 30 policemen there at the time of the attack. Reinforcements are coming now.”
No comments:
Post a Comment