Wave of Taliban attacks kills at least 20 Afghan soldiers

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban staged three attacks in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least 20 Afghan soldiers as a high-level NATO delegation was visiting the country to discuss the peace process.

The insurgents have been striking checkpoints and small outposts at night in the turbulent southern provinces of Farah and Helmand.

In one attack, the insurgents detonated explosives packed into a U.S.-made Humvee that had been captured from the Afghan army. And in another, they made off with a Humvee, replenishing their supply.

In the most lethal strike, insurgents overran a checkpoint in Farah province around 3 a.m. Saturday. An Afghan army spokesman said that 18 government soldiers were killed and two others wounded, and that a firefight with the attackers had continued even after reinforcements arrived.

A member of the provincial council in Farah, Dadullah Qani, said that more than 20 soldiers had been killed and that the Taliban had captured the Humvee and burned an army truck.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, offered a slightly different account in a statement delivered on the messaging service WhatsApp. He said the insurgents had overrun the checkpoint, killing 25 soldiers, capturing two alive and making off with both a Humvee and a truck.

“A lot of heavy and light weapons were also captured,” Mujahid said.

The Taliban also staged two suicide strikes in Helmand province, including the one involving the explosive-laden Humvee. Those attacks killed two soldiers and wounded about a dozen civilians, including women and children, according to officials.

Also Saturday, a suicide attacker detonated explosives at a checkpoint in Kabul on the edge of the Green Zone, a heavily guarded district of government offices.

The attacker detonated the bomb after soldiers and intelligence officers stopped him at a checkpoint, said Najib Danish, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The blast killed at least three people and wounded a halfdozen others, he said.

The headquarters of the U.S.-led international forces in Afghanistan was briefly locked down after that attack, but opened soon after for a briefing by members of the NATO delegation.