Hundreds of Taliban militants stormed a district in Afghanistan’s western Badghis province, with both Afghan government forces and the militant group suffering dozens of casualties, provincial officials said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hundreds of Taliban militants stormed a district in Afghanistan’s western Badghis province, with both Afghan government forces and the militant group suffering dozens of casualties, provincial officials said.<\/p>\n
The district of Bala Murghab has been a recurring hotspot of fighting in the past two months, and officials have previously warned that it could fall to the Taliban without reinforcements.<\/p>\n
Fighting in Afghanistan has escalated ahead of the usual spring season, as both sides seek to increase leverage in talks on a peace settlement.<\/p>\n
More than 30 Taliban were also killed, said Jamshed Shahabi spokesman for Badghis’ provincial governor.<\/p>\n
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said it attacked from four directions, capturing five checkpoints, Press TV reported.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the defense ministry said Afghan forces had forced the Taliban to retreat from some checkpoints and that all key areas remained under its control.<\/p>\n
The conflict in Badghis has been particularly intense along with northern Kunduz province and Helmand province in the south in recent weeks. Both sides took heavy casualties in Badghis last month, and at one point 50 members of Afghan security forces surrendered to the Taliban.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hundreds of Taliban militants stormed a district in Afghanistan’s western Badghis province, with both Afghan government forces and the militant group suffering dozens of casualties, provincial officials said. \u00a0 Hundreds of Taliban militants stormed a district in Afghanistan’s western Badghis province, with both Afghan government forces and the militant group suffering dozens of casualties, provincial …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":18929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_108372464460192_245495985553329":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n