Afghan officials say highway reopened after Taliban assault

The Taliban said they overran the district headquarters, but local officials denied the claim.

Rahimi said reinforcements have been sent to the area and that the district is under the control of security forces.

The destruction of the bridges had cut off the main highway from Kabul to the Ghazni, Zabul and Kandahar provinces. The battle also cut off electricity to four provinces: Maidan Wardak, Logar, Ghazni and Paktia.

The Taliban have seized a number of districts across the country in recent years and regularly attack security forces. The latest assault comes just two weeks before Afghanistan holds parliamentary elections.

On Sunday, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan said civilian deaths from suicide bombings rose 46 per cent in the first nine months of this year from the same period last year and that deaths from roadside bombs were up 21 per cent. It says more than 1,000 people were killed and more than 2,500 have been wounded this year in both kinds of attacks, including scores of women and children.

It said suicide bombings caused more civilian deaths than any other form of violence, including ground battles between troops and insurgents.

“Deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime and cannot be tolerated,” said Tadamichi Yamamoto, the U.N. envoy for Afghanistan. “The unpredictable nature of these types of attacks has caused Afghans unbearable suffering and forced them to live in fear of the next explosion, severely curtailing their ability to carry out normal lives.”

The U.N. also documented a dramatic increase in attacks deliberately targeting civilians. While the Taliban mainly attack security forces and government officials, an Islamic State affiliate has launched a relentless wave of bombings targeting Afghanistan’s Shiite minority.

The U.N. said that in the first nine months of this year it has documented more casualties from attacks on Shiites than in the whole of 2017.

Rahim Faiez, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Afghan officials say highway reopened after Taliban assault

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