Taliban intensifies attacks in Afghanistan after polls

KABUL, Afghanistan

Days after the landmark presidential polls in Afghanistan, the Taliban intensified attacks particularly in the country’s north, killing at least 11 security forces in Balkh province alone, officials said on Tuesday.

The insurgents stormed police check posts in Shor Tepa district of otherwise well-secured Balkh province early on Tuesday killing at least 11 policemen, Munir Farhad, spokesman for the provincial governor, told Anadolu Agency.

In a statement posted on the social media, the Taliban insurgents claimed to have overrun key government buildings in the district after “killing 30 security forces and abducting 12 others”, an assertion rejected by the governor's spokesman.

Farhad said the insurgents have been forced to flee as additional troops reached the district.

Elsewhere, similar deadly clashes took place in neighboring Jawzjan, Takhar as well as southern Uruzgan, Kandahar, Helmand and Logar provinces.

The local Tolo News reported that at least 30 security forces are under the Taliban siege in restive Darzab district of Jawzjan.

Meanwhile, the army's 209-Shaheen Corps noted in a statement on Tuesday that the Taliban's shadow district governor Gul Nabi Mubarez among others has been killed in the Balkh province in an air raid.

At least 16 pro-government militia members were killed in a “friendly air raid” earlier this week in neighboring Takhar.

The local Salam Afghanistan radio reported that more than 30 security forces and civilians were killed in the past two days as the Taliban staged attacks on three districts of the province at a time.

On the heels of failed peace talks between the U.S and the Taliban, the Afghan forces backed by American air power managed to reclaim some territories from the insurgents in Afghanistan, resulting in deadly clashes with the Taliban in various pockets of the country claiming many lives on all sides.