The Government of Afghanistan announced on Monday the death of more than 50 alleged Taliban, including about ten Pakistani nationals, in a series of operations carried out by the security forces during the last 24 hours in three provinces of the country.
The Ministry of Defense has indicated through its official account on the social network Twitter that “29 Taliban, including their commander, died and seven were wounded in the Pushtrud district, in the province of Fara, in reciprocal attacks and bombings by the Air Force”.
It also stated that eleven Taliban were killed and eight wounded in fighting in the Gizab district of Uruzgan province, while fourteen insurgents, including nine Pakistanis, were killed in a bombardment in the Jashrod district of Nimruz.
The Afghan Ministry has highlighted in the latter case that “it is investigating the accusations of civilian victims in the incident”, without giving further details about it. According to information collected by the Afghan television network Ariana, 18 members of the same family were killed in the bombing.
Relatives of the victims held a protest on Sunday and took the bodies of the 18 deceased to the city of Zaranj, the province’s administrative headquarters. The provincial authorities have argued that all the dead are members of the Taliban.
Afghanistan has experienced a spike in violence in recent months despite the agreement between the Taliban and the United States and the peace talks between the group and the Afghan government, whose delegations agreed in December on the ‘road map’ for the process. .
The government delegation traveled to Doha on January 5 for the second round of contacts with the Taliban, who had accused the United States a day earlier of violating the historic peace agreement signed on February 29, 2020 with their latest bombardments against positions of insurgents in Kandahar and other parts of the country.
