58 killed in Taliban attack on Kandahar army camp

KABUL: The Taliban have killed at least 58 Afghan security forces in a wave of attacks across the country, including an assault that nearly wiped out an army camp in the southern Kandahar province.

Government spokesman Dawlat Waziri said the attack on the army camp late Wednesday, which involved two suicide car bombs and set off hours of fighting, killed at least 43 soldiers. “The base has been destroyed completely and those who were inside the camp were martyred. May God give peace to their souls,” he said.

Nine other soldiers were wounded and six have gone missing, he said, adding that 10 attackers were killed.The attack began when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden American-made Humvee armoured vehicle, likely captured from Afghan security forces, into the gate of the base. That began an hours-long assault by the Taliban gunmen, which was interrupted by a second Humvee breaking all the way into the base and detonating inside, he said. The base itself was left in ruins, officials said.

The Taliban claimed the attack in a media statement.Jabar Qahraman, MP from southern Helmand province, questioned the capability and management of the security forces at the bases.

“The security leadership must be assessed in Kandahar and Helmand as soon as possible. The leaders who cannot be accountable will create problems instead of solving them,” Qahraman said.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Taliban ambush in the northern Balkh province late Wednesday killed six policemen, according to Shir Jan Durani, spokesman for the provincial police chief.

A Taliban attack on police posts in the western Farah province, also late Wednesday, killednine policemen, said police chief Abdul Marouf Foulad. He said 22 insurgents were killed in the ensuing gunbattle.

In the past three days, three deadly attacks carried out by the Taliban against Afghan security forces – in Paktia, Ghazni and Kandahar provinces – have claimed the lives of well over 100 security force members and wounded dozens more.

Afghan forces have struggled to combat a resurgent Taliban since US and Nato forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a counterterrorism and support role.

The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers. Among those killed in one of the attacks was a provincial police chief.Scores were also wounded, both policemen and civilians. Afghanistan’s deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called Tuesday’s onslaught the “biggest terrorist attack this year.”

Meanwhile, at least four suspected militants were killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan’s Paktia province near the Pak-Afghan border on Thursday.A suspected drone fired two missiles targeting alleged militant hideouts in the area, killing four militants.