At least 8 Afghan security personnel killed in Taliban attack

Kabul, Jan 30 (efe-epa).- At least eight members of the Afghan security forces were killed on Saturday in a Taliban truck bombing against a checkpost in the conflict-ridden eastern province of Nangarhar, officials said.

“In this incident, unfortunately eight members of the public civil order forces were martyred” in the attack, which took place in the Shirzad ditrict, the Nangarhar provincial governor’s office said in a statement.

According to the statement, Afghan security forces also intercepted a second truck filled with explosives between Shirzad and provincial capital Jalalabad.

“Currently security forces are busy in safely defusing the (second) truck bomb in the area,” the governor’s office said.

A Nangarhar administration official told EFE on the condition of anonymity that the death toll had increased to 14, while four people had been injured, with all casualties being security personnel.

According to the source, a suicide bomber detonated the explosives hidden in a military humvee – which had been earlier stolen from the security forces – at a checkpost.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, and said that the assault against a “security base” of Afghan special forces had managed to kill “all 50” soldiers present at the spot.

The Taliban have continued to carry out attacks in the country and have sustained a high level of violence despite intra-Afghan peace negotiations going on in Doha between the insurgents and the Afghan government for the last four months.

Apart from armed attacks against security posts, the country has also witnessed a wave of targeted killings of journalists, activists, politicians and intellectuals in urban areas, which increased dramatically in 2020.

Shootings and sticky bomb attacks against the vehicles’ victims have become almost a daily occurrence in Afghanistan over the past few months.

Although the government has directly blamed the Taliban for the killings, the insurgent group has repeatedly denied its involvement in the attacks, and has in turn blamed Afghan security forces for carrying them out to fabricate negative propaganda against them. EFE-EPA

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