Fighting has picked up in several areas of northern Afghanistan, and officials said on Wednesday, days after the collapse of talks between the United States and the Taliban aimed at agreeing on the withdrawal of thousands of US troops.
Officials said there was fighting in at least 10 provinces, with the heaviest clashes in the northern regions of Takhar, Baghlan, Kunduz and Badakhshan, where the Taliban have been pressing security forces for weeks.
Members of Afghan security forces climb over a fence in Kabul, Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, security forces retook the district of Koran-Wa-Monjan in Badakhshan, the defence ministry said in a statement. The district, which fell to the Taliban in July, had offered the insurgents valuable mining revenues from its rich reserves of the famous blue lapis lazuli stone.
It was the third district security forces have secured during a push in the province over recent days after Yamgan and Warduj, which the Taliban had held for the past four years.
In the neighbouring province of Takhar, however, local officials said this week’s government forces had pulled out of Yangi Qala and Darqad districts, while fighting was going on in Khawja Ghar and Ishkamesh district.
“It is a tactical retreat to avoid civilian casualties in the area. We have fresh forces in the area and soon the districts will be recaptured,” said Jawad Hejri, a spokesperson for the Takhar provincial governor.
The latest fighting underscored expectations of an escalation in violence following US President Donald Trump’s abrupt cancellation of talks with the Taliban aimed at withdrawing US troops and opening the way to an end to 18 years of war in Afghanistan.
The Taliban said this week the decision, which Trump said was caused by the insurgents’ refusal to agree on a ceasefire and continued attacks that killed a US serviceman last week, would lead to further American deaths.
In response, a senior US general said that the US military was likely to accelerate the pace of its operations in Afghanistan to counter an increase in Taliban attacks.
Security officials said the scale of the fighting in northern Afghanistan reflected both the expected intensification of combat following the collapse of peace efforts as well as the last push before winter weather restricts fighting in the mountains.
Earlier this week,A rocket reportedly exploded near the US embassy in the Afghan capital city shortly after midnight on the anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, AP said.
According to AP, citing embassy officials, a projectile exploded just minutes into Wednesday. Inside the embassy, the staffers reportedly heard that the blast had been caused by a rocket that hit the compound.
Officials at the compound declared an all-clear about an hour later and reported no injuries, according to the media report. The nearby NATO mission also said that no personnel had been injured, AP reported.
According to AFP, citing Afghan's interior ministry spokesman, Nosrat Rahimi, "a rocket hit a wall at the defence ministry, with no casualties reported".
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Violence in Afghanistan has escalated amid talks between the United States and the Taliban movement, which has in recent days conducted a number of terrorist attacks that have killed dozens of people in the war-torn country.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump said that US peace talks with the Taliban were 'dead' after the group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed a US service member in Kabul on 5 September.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani reiterated, however, his commitment to the people-owned peace process amid the breakup of the US-Taliban peace talks. In turn, the Taliban vowed to continue fighting against American forces in Afghanistan after the US president withdrew from peace talks.
The US and the Taliban have for nearly a year been attempting to negotiate a peace deal that would ensure the withdrawal of foreign troops in exchange for the movement's guarantee that the country will not become a safe haven for terrorists. The talks, however, excluded the Afghan government, as the Taliban considers it a US puppet.
Afghanistan has long suffered with unstable security. The government has been fighting the Taliban, which has been waging a war against Kabul for almost two decades.
The United States and its allies launched a military operation in Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, organized by the al-Qaeda terrorist group, which was at the time backed by a Taliban-led government of Afghanistan. at least seven civilians died in an airstrike conducted by American and Afghan commandos on Monday in Sayed Abad district in central Maidan Wardak province, senior Afghan security officials said.
The Taliban in a statement condemned the attack and said nine civilians who were on the way to a wedding party were killed in the drone strike.
There was no confirmation from American and NATO officials on the airstrike.
In Baghlan province, whose capital Pul-e Khumri has been under pressure for days, security forces partially cleared the main highway connecting the north to the capital Kabul
