Taliban attack checkpoints, kill 28 policemen: Afghan officials

Kabul, September 23

The Taliban launched a wave of assaults on safety checkpoints in southern Afghanistan in a single day, killing a complete of 28 Afghan policemen, officers mentioned on Wednesday.

The violence comes at the same time as Taliban leaders and Afghan government-appointed negotiators are holding historic peace talks in Qatar, a Mideast nation the place the Taliban arrange a political workplace after they had been toppled from energy within the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The negotiations, which began earlier this month, are supposed to finish the combating and set up a roadmap for a post-war society.

According to the provincial governor’s spokesman Zelgay Ebadi, the assaults began late on Tuesday in southern Uruzgan province.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Mohammad Yousuf Ahmadi, claimed duty for the assaults and mentioned the insurgents carried them out after the police within the space refused to give up to the insurgents.

Ebadi, in the meantime, mentioned the policemen had been killed after they’d surrendered.

The discrepancy of their accounts couldn’t instantly be resolved. The remoteness of the world makes it inconceivable to independently confirm both model of occasions.

Reinforcements weren’t in a position to get to the outposts to save lots of the besieged officers however Ebadi mentioned Afghan safety forces had been later again in control of the checkpoints. The Taliban seized weapons discovered on the scene earlier than fleeing the checkpoints.

In the negotiations in Qatar, the 2 sides have thus far have spent greater than every week deciding agendas and the style through which the 2 sides might be conducting the negotiations.

Both the federal government in Kabul and the United States have known as for a discount of violence whereas talks are being held in Qatar, however the Taliban have mentioned they might not decide to a discount of violence till the phrases of a cease-fire are negotiated and resolved Deep distrust exists on each side of the desk. — AP