A nighttime Taliban attack on security checkpoints has claimed the lives of at least seven policemen in east cental Afghanistan, security sources say.
The deadly attack was carried out on Wednesday night in Jalrez District of Maidan Wardak Province, south of the capital, Kabul.
Zakir Hussain Sultani, the deputy provincial governor, said the Taliban militants captured at least five checkpoints in the fatal assault across the troubled region.
Local Afghan media reports said that intense fighting between Afghan forces and the Taliban militants was still underway in the area on Thursday.
The Taliban militant group in a statement claimed responsibility for the latest attack on Afghan forces.
Also on Thursday, a roadside mine explosion struck two Afghan army tanks in the same troubled province. There were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage following the explosion.
The Taliban militants control most of the rural parts of the strategically important Maidan Wardak Province, which is considered as one of the gates to Kabul.
The Taliban militants have intensified attacks on Afghan and foreign forces since launching the so-called spring offensive in late April.
Afghanistan is grappling with militancy and bloodshed more than a dozen years after the United States and its allies invaded the country in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror.
JR/HSN/HMV