KABUL: Twenty-nine insurgents and one policeman were killed in a coordinated attack by the Taliban aimed at capturing the eastern Kunar province’s Ghaziabad district, a local official said Saturday.
"The clash erupted after militants staged an attack on security check-posts," Provincial Governor Wahidullah Kalemzai told Anadolu Agency.
"But police repulsed the attack… and inflicted heavy casualties on them," he said.
According to Kalemzai, the attackers came to within 20 meters of the district’s main government building when police managed to push them back and secure the district center following an hours-long gun-battle.
Kalemzai said the area had since been cleared of insurgents but that gunfire could still be heard in surrounding mountainous areas.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, for his part, claimed that Taliban fighters had killed 11 security personnel and captured two checkpoints during the exchange.
He acknowledged, however, that the Taliban had sustained causalities in the fighting.
In a related development, Afghan forces claimed to have killed the Taliban’s shadow district governor for Kohsan in an overnight operation.
According to a spokesman for the governor of the western Herat province, four other militants were killed along with the Taliban official.
AA
