Taliban attack checkpoint, 13 in security forces die

KABUL — Taliban militants attacked a newly established joint Afghan army and police checkpoint in eastern Ghazni province on Monday, killing at least 13 soldiers and police officers, according to a provincial official.

Afghan reinforcements were dispatched to the site of the attack in Khogyani district but were repeatedly ambushed along the way.

Before the assault in Ghazni, the Taliban struck in southern Kandahar province late Sunday and killed at least four police officers.

The assaults came as a resurgent Taliban hold nearly half of Afghanistan, with near-daily attacks on Afghan security forces. The Taliban view the U.S.-backed government in Kabul as a dysfunctional Western puppet and have refused repeated offers to negotiate with it.

Arif Noori, spokesman for the provincial governor in Ghazni, said seven soldiers and six police officers were killed in Monday’s attack on the checkpoint, and four soldiers were wounded.

According to Noori, six insurgents were killed and more than 10 others were wounded during the ensuing three-hour battle with Afghan forces. Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, claimed responsibility for the Ghazni and Kandahar attacks.

The joint army-police checkpoint was set up just two days ago in a strategic area to cut off a key supply route for the Taliban. It was completely burned down and destroyed, Noori said.

“Reinforcements were rushed to assist the forces under attack but they were ambushed by other Taliban fighters at least four times while on their way to the checkpoint,” said Noori.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks in volatile Ghazni, and in August overran parts of the provincial capital, also called Ghazni. At the time, hundreds of people fled the city amid intense fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban that killed about 120 members of the security forces and civilians. According to Afghan authorities, nearly 200 insurgents, many of them foreign fighters, were also killed.

Ghazni is the only one out of 34 Afghan provinces where the country’s October parliamentary elections could not take place for security reasons. Voting was postponed for a year. Elections were delayed for a week in Kandahar after an attack by an elite Afghan guard killed two top government officials.