Afghan ministry: 1 policeman killed in Kabul hotel attack

Kareem Atal, the director of the provincial council, said Sunday that battles between government forces and militants have been raging in the Kanashin district since late Friday, when the Taliban took control.

A district administration source confided to Pajhwok Afghan News Khanshin police chief Abdul Rauf and the deputy intelligence head had been wounded critically in the overnight fighting.

The renewed offensives are a bid by the Afghan government to regain control of some five per cent of territory that has been lost to insurgent groups since May previous year, according to the U.S. special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction.

Foreign guesthouses have always been a Taliban target.

Taliban militants reportedly attacked a series of police checkpoints Friday night in the district of Kanashin, killing approximately 17 officers and wounding up to 10 others.

The Northgate is typical of many pre-fabricated compounds that offer secure accommodation to foreign workers.

That attack was claimed by the Islamic State group, its first in the Afghan capital and the biggest in Kabul since the Taliban launched their insurgency in 2001.

The Interior Ministry said “terrorists” used a truck full of explosives to breach the perimeter wall of the Northgate Hotel around 1:30 a.m. Please see our terms of service for more information.

It is a major poppy-producing district and 60 percent of it are now in Taliban control, added Akhonzada.

It said that of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, 268 were under government control of influence, 36 or 8.8 percent were under insurgent control or influence, and 104 or 25.6 percent were considered “at risk”.

In Logar province, near Kabul, on Sunday, five civilians were killed when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in the Hazra district, the governor’s spokesman Salim Saleh said.