PUL-I-KHUMRI (SW): Despite weeks of a full blown military operation against the surging militancy in the north, Taliban managed to overrun two important security checkpoints in the northern Baghlan province, an official said on Tuesday.
Reports emerging from Baghlan’s Dehan-e-Ghori district suggest the armed rebels have taken hostage some 20 members of the government forces and have also confiscated arms and ammunitions late on Monday. The captive security forces were later released through local elders’ mediation.
Besmillah Atash, a member of provincial council in Baghlan, confirmed the news and told SW that the check points fall to the Taliban as a result of security forces’ negligence. He added that more than 50 security forces in these two check points were besieged by the armed militants for 7 days but officials did not send supporting forces to help them fight the insurgents.
According to him, the fighting between Taliban and Afghan security forces left 5 security men dead.
Separately, The Provincial Attorney General Col. Syed Mansoor was shot dead in an attack in the provincial capital Pul-i-Khumri, on Tuesday morning. The AG was on his way to office when gunmen intercepted his vehicle and shot at him and his son. His son survived.
A day earlier, Vice President Gen. Abdul Rasheed Dostum said northern Kunduz province was the epicenter of militants in the north. Speaking in Baghlan, Gen. Dostum said soon this center of the Taliban would be dismantled.
ENDS
