US conducts Kunduz air strike after Taliban assault

The Taliban has reportedly captured the northern Afghanistan city of Kunduz, its first major victory against the us and allied forces since 2001.

“Fresh troops have arrived in Kunduz, and an operation has been launched”, the ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.

They are backed by the USA forces that launched an airstrike on the city early in support of the counter-offensive on Tuesday, according a spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan.

“Kunduz city has collapsed into the hands of the Taliban”, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told the Associated Press.

Marauding insurgents stormed the local jail, freeing hundreds of prisoners, including a few Taleban commanders, officials said.

Battles between government forces and the Taliban were raging about 500 metres from the governor’s compound, the deputy governor said, after he had fled to the city’s airport.

“Reinforcements have been deployed to the city”, regional police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said on Tuesday.

The Taliban have a history of brutality toward those they regard as apostates, and have banned girls from school as well as music, movies and other trappings of modern life in areas under their control.

Taliban prisoners walk on a street after their comrades released… Fierce fighting in two neighboring provinces to Kunduz – Baghlan and Takhar – has broken out between insurgents and security forces.

Kunduz Province is strategic as it is located on a crossroad that connects key regions of the country. He later tweeted that they had been using the people of Kunduz “as a shield”. In addition, Médecins Sans Frontières said their hospital in Kunduz had admitted more than 100 casualties, and was operating on full capacity.

Taliban militants have seized the strategic city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan after 14 hours of intense fighting.

The militants often overstate casualties they inflict on government security personnel.

“The upshot is that Afghan forces, despite their many improvements in recent years, remain a work in progress”, said Michael Kugelman, Afghanistan expert at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson worldwide Center for Scholars.

Several people, including police officers, have been killed, and scores wounded in the attacks.

Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s thinly spread security forces are increasingly also having to deal with the threat from the self-styled Islamic State group, which is looking to make inroads in the troubled country.

The insurgency has escalated this year, after North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdrew nearly all of its combat troops and focused instead on training the fledgling Afghan armed forces.