Taliban terrorists killed and wounded over 400 Afghan forces in one week

The Taliban has killed or wounded more than 400 Afghan security personnel over the past week, Afghanistan’s interior ministry said.

The violence comes just before the much-delayed peace talks aimed at ending the 18-year war. Under the US-Taliban deal signed in February, the Afghan government is supposed to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners while the insurgents would free about 1,000 Afghan security force personnel, as a confidence-building measure ahead of the formal peace talks.

The prisoner exchange was accelerated after the Taliban announced a May 24-26 ceasefire for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr. Kabul has so far released nearly 3,000 prisoners, while the Taliban have released more than 400 government prisoners.

However, Afghan officials have accused the group of stepping up attacks in recent days: “In the past one week, the Taliban carried out 222 attacks against the Afghan security forces, resulting in the death and injury of 422” personnel, interior ministry spokesman Tariq Arian said on Sunday.

“This has been the goal of the Taliban to target religious scholars, especially in the past two weeks”, he added. He also accused the armed fighters of being an “umbrella group for other terrorist networks”.

A United Nations report, published on June 1, has found the Taliban still has close ties with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, despite the peace deal with the US.

Source: New Europe