Taliban try to take Afghan city in brazen assault

The Taliban launched a multipronged attack in attempts to overrun a provincial capital in Afghanistan on Friday, hiding inside people’s homes before slipping into city streets overnight and setting off daylong clashes with U.S.-backed Afghan forces trying to push them back.

At least 14 Afghan policemen were killed and 20 were wounded in the assault on Ghazni, the capital of a province with the same name, provincial police chief Farid Ahmad Mashal told The Associated Press.

The attack first began around 2 a.m. with intense gunbattles raging and fires burning in several shops in the city’s residential areas, he said. Fighting continued throughout the day and by mid-afternoon, the Taliban had set the local TV building on fire.

Taliban fighters also destroyed the telecommunications tower, located just outside the city, cutting all cellphone and landline access to Ghazni, according to Ali Akbar Kasemi, a lawmaker from the city.

Afghan troops on the ground called in airstrikes to try to quash the offensive.

As evening approached, fighting focused mainly in three directions into the city, said Nasrat Rahimi, deputy spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The Taliban were using people’s homes to hide in, making it difficult for security forces to flush them out.

The city was in lockdown as residents reported sporadic bursts of gunfire. Taliban fighters had hunkered down in elevated positions inside Ghazni from where they were shooting, some residents said earlier, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear for their safety.

People were staying indoors and all shops in the city remained closed, they said. The highway from Kabul to Afghanistan’s southern provinces was closed as it runs through Ghazni.

An Afghan military helicopter crash landed in the city during the daytime fighting, and four Afghan soldiers on board were injured, one critically, said Mohammad Radmanish, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense.