Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai)

TALIBAN SPRING OFFENSIVE TO TARGET FOREIGN FORCES, INTEL

- Agence Francepres­se

The Afghan Taliban will target foreign forces in the country, the group said on Friday, as they announced the start of their spring offensive.

“The key objective... will be the foreign forces, their military infrastruc­ture and intelligen­ce, and the eliminatio­n of their local mercenarie­s,” the extremist group said in a statement. “The enemy will be targeted, harassed, killed or captured until they abandon their last posts.”

Operation Mansouri -- named after the group’s former leader who was killed in a US drone strike in May 2016 -- will use strategies from “convention­al attack to guerrilla operations”, the statement said. Followers were told there can be “suicide attacks, complex attacks and inside attacks” by soldiers or police turning against their peers.

The announceme­nt came after the Taliban killed scores of people in a raid on an army base in northern Afghanista­n, one of its deadliest assaults on a military installati­on since the 2001 Us-led invasion. Authoritie­s have arrested 35 soldiers who served on the sprawling base, home to the209thar­mycorps outsidethe

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