KABUL (Reuters) - The Taliban killed more than 100 members of the Afghan security forces inside a military compound in central Maidan Wardak province on Monday, a senior defense official said.

“We have information that 126 people have been killed in the explosion inside the military training center, eight special commandoes are among the dead,” said a senior official in the defense ministry in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said the assault began on Monday morning when the attackers rammed a car full explosives through a military check point and detonated the vehicle inside the campus of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces training center in Maidan Shahr, the capital of Maidan Wardak province.

Two gunmen entered the campus right after the explosion and shot at many Afghan soldiers before being gunned down during the clashes.

Defense ministry officials said the Taliban had used U.S.-made armored Humvee vehicles captured from Afghan forces as a car bomb in order to breach the military fortifications.

A second source residing in Maidan Wardak province said more than 100 members of National Directorate of Security (NDS) were killed in the complex attack.

“I have been in touch with the NDS official in the province and they told me that over 100 members of the NDS were killed in the big explosion,” the former provincial official said.

Sharif Hotak, a member of the provincial council in Maidan Wardak said he saw bodies of 35 Afghan forces in the hospital.

“Many more were killed. Several bodies were transported to Kabul city and many injured were transferred to hospitals in Kabul,” said Hotak, adding that “the government was hiding the accurate casualty figures to prevent a further dip in morale of the Afghan forces.”

“The explosion was very powerful. The whole building has collapsed,” he said.

Government officials in Maidan Wardak and Kabul declined to comment when asked if they were obscuring the death toll.

Two senior officials in the interior ministry said the exact casualty figures was not being disclosed to prevent unrest within the armed forces.

“I have been told not to make the death toll figures public. It is frustrating to hide the facts,” said a senior interior ministry official in Kabul.

A senior NDS official in Kabul said at least 50 people were killed or wounded in the complex attack.

Abdurrahman Mangal, spokesman for the provincial governor in Maidan Wardak said 12 people were killed and 12 were injured when the car bomb exploded near the Afghan special forces unit.

President Ashraf Ghani’s office in a statement said the “enemies of the country” had carried out an attack against NDS personnel in Maidan Shahr. “They killed and wounded a number of our beloved and honest sons.”

In recent years the Afghan government has stopped releasing detailed casualty figures. Last year Ghani has said 28,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers have been killed since 2015, breaking the longstanding suppression on casualty data.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the hardline Islamic militant group said they have killed 190 people in the complex attack.

Last week, Taliban fighters set off a car bomb outside a highly fortified compound killing at least five people and wounding more than 110 Afghans and expatriates in the capital, Kabul. </s> The Taliban killed more than 100 members of the Afghan security forces inside a military compound in central Maidan Wardak province on Monday, a senior defence official said.

"We have information that 126 people have been killed in the explosion inside the military training center, eight special commandoes are among the dead," said a senior official in the defence ministry in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said the assault began on Monday morning when the attackers rammed a car full explosives through a military check point and detonated the vehicle inside the campus of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces training center in Maidan Shahr, the capital of Maidan Wardak province.

Two gunmen entered the campus right after the explosion and shot at many Afghan soldiers before being gunned down during the clashes.

Defence ministry officials said the Taliban had used US-made armoured Humvee vehicles captured from Afghan forces as a car bomb in order to breach the military fortifications.

A second source residing in Maidan Wardak province said more than 100 members of National Directorate of Security (NDS) were killed in the complex attack.

"I have been in touch with the NDS official in the province and they told me that over 100 members of the NDS were killed in the big explosion," the former provincial official said. </s> At least 10 officers killed in two days of fighting for control of key highways

At least 10 policemen died in clashes with Taliban fighters in the central Afghan province of Wardak, officials said on Sunday, amid fighting to wrest control of important highways a day after the insurgents blew up bridges.

The Taliban set fire to a government building in Wardak's Sayeed Abad district and killed the district police chief along with nine other officers on Saturday night, a senior police source said.

Repeated assaults on strategically important provinces, such as Wardak and nearby Ghazni, have been a show of strength by the Taliban, underscoring how volatile security remains in Afghanistan two weeks before parliamentary elections.

Afghan security forces killed at least 25 Taliban insurgents, government officials said. Reinforcements from neighbouring provinces were sent to regain control of the contested highways.

Officials said Afghan forces drove out Taliban insurgents from the highway that connects the capital, Kabul, to the major southern city of Kandahar.

Abdul Rahman Mangal, a spokesman for Wardak's governor, said the Taliban raided civilian homes after killing the 10 policemen, destroyed newly built checkpoints and cut power to some parts of the city.

Afghanistan’s power company said major power lines serving Wardak and Ghazni were cut. The power cuts also affected parts of the nearby provinces of Logar and Paktia.

A statement from the Taliban's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the insurgents took the centre of Sayeed Abad and all surrounding security checkpoints, killing members of the security forces and seizing weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

Mohammad Arif Noori, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor, said one soldier was killed by Taliban fighters as they tried to take parts of the province nearly two months after being pushed back from its main city by US-backed Afghan forces.

The Taliban attacked Ghazni, a strategically important centre straddling the main highway linking Kabul with Afghanistan's south, in August. It was the largest tactical operation launched by the insurgents since they overran the northern city of Kunduz in 2015.

That confrontation killed 150 members of the security forces and 95 civilians, as well as hundreds of Taliban fighters.

_______________

Read more:

UN mission in Afghanistan voices concern as violence peaks ahead of elections

Suicide bomber hits Afghan election rally

Afghan roadside bomb attack kills two people

_______________ </s> Men stand in front of a collapsed building of a military base after a car bomb attack in Maidan Wardak - REUTERS

Taliban attackers killed more than 100 Afghan security personnel when they detonated a car bomb in a training base and then stormed inside.

The deadly attack on an intelligence training centre came amid American fears that the beleaguered Afghan forces are suffering unsustainable casualties against the Taliban.

A captured, American-made armoured vehicle loaded with explosives was rammed through a checkpoint at the National Directorate of Security (NDS) training base in Maidan Shahr, the capital of Maidan Wardak province.

A senior defence official told Reuters that after the vehicle detonated in the campus, two gunmen had entered and shot dead many Afghans in the wake of the huge explosion.

"We have information that 126 people have been killed in the explosion inside the military training centre, eight special commandoes are among the dead," said the official.

Another official put the NDS death toll at more than 100.

Last month, the Pentagon’s pick for the next commander of U.S. Central Command said the Afghan's high casualty rate was unsustainable.

Lt Gen Kenneth McKenzie said: “Their losses have been very high. They are fighting hard, but their losses are not going to be sustainable unless we correct this problem.”

Ashraf Ghani, last year said Afghanistan had lost 28,000 soldiers and police killed since 2015.

Sharif Hotak, a member of the Wardak provincial council in Maidan Wardak, said he saw bodies of 35 Afghan personnel in the hospital after the attack.

"Many more were killed. Several bodies were transported to Kabul city and many injured were transferred to hospitals in Kabul," said Hotak, adding that "the government was hiding the

accurate casualty figures to prevent a further dip in morale of the Afghan forces."

Two senior officials in the interior ministry said the exact casualty figures was not being disclosed to prevent unrest within the armed forces.

Lindsey Graham, the senior US Republican senator, said during a visit to Islamabad earlier this week that the Afghan forces still needed American help.

“ Those who want the Afghans to fight and be in the front of the fight, they are,” he said.

“ To those who believe they should do more and America should do less, that's coming true. One thing I can tell President Trump and the American people is that we are still needed. It is in our interests to see this through.” </s> Taliban militants have carried out an assault on a military base in Maidan Wardak Province in eastern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said.

 

 A Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the January 21 attack on the base, which also serves as a police training facility.

 

 An Afghan health official told the AP that at least 12 people had been killed in the attack.

A local official in Maidan Wardak Province told RFE/RL that the total casualty figure was more than 20.

 

 A suicide car bomber struck the base around 7 a.m., after which an unknown number of militants attacked.

 

 Abdurahman Mangal, spokesman for the Maidan Wardak Province governor, told RFE/RL that three suicide bombers were shot dead by security forces before they were able to detonate their bombs.

 

 Taliban militants killed eight police officers and wounded 10 on January 20 in Logar Province in an attack that targeted a convoy conveying the provincial governor.

With reporting by AP and dpa </s> KABUL: At least 10 policemen were killed in clashes with Taliban fighters in the central Afghan province of Wardak, officials said on Sunday, amid fighting to wrest control of arterial highways a day after Taliban fighters blew up bridges.

The Taliban set fire to a government building in Wardak’s Sayeed Abad district and killed the district police chief along with nine other policemen on Saturday night, a senior police official said.

Repeated assaults by Taliban on strategically important provinces, such as Wardak and nearby Ghazni have underscored how volatile security remains in Afghanistan two weeks before nationwide parliamentary elections.

At least 25 Taliban were killed by Afghan securityy forces, government officials said, and reinforcements from neighbouring provinces were deployed to regain control of contested highways. Officials said Afghan forces had driven out Taliban from the highway that connects Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, to the major southern city of Kandahar.

Abdul Rahman Mangal, a spokesman for the Wardak governor’s office, said the Taliban raided some civilian houses after killing 10 policemen in that province, destroyed newly built checkpoints and cut power to some parts of the city.

Government forces counter-attacked to stop the insurgents from approaching the city, Mangal said. Afghanistan’s power supply company, Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat, said in a statement major power lines serving Wardak and Ghazni had been cut.

The power cuts also affected parts of the nearby provinces of Logar and Paktia. It said teams would be sent to repair the lines as soon as security improves. A statement from the Taliban’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the Taliban had taken the centre of Sayeed Abad in Wardak and all surrounding security checkpoints, killing numerous members of the security forces and seizing weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

Mohammad Arif Noori, a spokesman for Ghazni’s governor, said one soldier was killed by Taliban fighters as they tried to gain control over parts of the province nearly two months after being pushed back from the city by US-backed Afghan forces. The Taliban attacked Ghazni, a strategically important centre straddling the main highway linking Kabul with Afghanistan’s south, in August.

It was the largest tactical operation launched by the Taliban since they overran the northern city of Kunduz in 2015. That confrontation killed 150 members of Afghanistan’s security forces and 95 civilians, as well as hundreds of Taliban fighters. </s> KABUL (Reuters) - At least 10 policemen were killed in clashes with Taliban fighters in the central Afghan province of Wardak, officials said on Sunday, amid fighting to wrest control of arterial highways a day after Taliban fighters blew up bridges.

The Taliban set fire to a government building in Wardak’s Sayeed Abad district and killed the district police chief along with nine other policemen on Saturday night, a senior police official said.

Repeated assaults on strategically important provinces, such as Wardak and nearby Ghazni, have been a show of strength for the Taliban, underscoring how volatile security remains in Afghanistan two weeks before nationwide parliamentary elections.

Abdul Rahman Mangal, a spokesman for the Wardak governor’s office, said the Taliban raided some civilian houses after killing 10 policemen, destroyed newly built checkpoints and cut power to some parts of the city.

Government forces counter-attacked to stop the insurgents from approaching the city, Mangal said.

A statement from the Taliban’s main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the insurgents had taken the centre of Sayeed Abad and all surrounding security checkpoints, killing numerous members of the security forces and seizing weapons, ammunition and vehicles.

Mohammad Arif Noori, a spokesman for Ghazni’s governor, said one soldier was killed by Taliban fighters as they tried to gain control over parts of the province nearly two months after being pushed back from the city by U.S.-backed Afghan forces.

The Taliban attacked Ghazni, a strategically important centre straddling the main highway linking Kabul with Afghanistan’s south, in August. It was the largest tactical operation launched by the Taliban since they overran the northern city of Kunduz in 2015.

That confrontation killed 150 members of Afghanistan’s security forces and 95 civilians, as well as hundreds of Taliban fighters. </s> The Taliban have launched a major attack on an Afghan military compound in central Maidan Wardak province, officials have said, with some putting the death toll at more than 100 people.

Monday’s incident at a campus of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) is the latest in a series of deadly attacks in recent months by the Taliban, which has seized control of about half of Afghanistan.

The Afghan authorities said the attack started on Monday morning, when a US-made armoured Humvee vehicle was driven into the compound and blown up. Gunmen also opened fire, before being killed by security forces.

Government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have given differing estimates of the death toll. One said it could be as high as 126 people and another said yet more were thought to have been wounded. “Eight special commandos are among the dead,” said a senior member of Kabul’s defence ministry. An official from the Afghan public health ministry said the total of killed and wounded could be about 140 people.

However, others offered a more conservative estimate. A senior NDS official in Kabul said at least 50 people were killed or wounded. Abdurrahman Mangal, a spokesman for the provincial governor in Maidan Wardak, said 12 people were killed and 12 were injured when the car bomb exploded near the Afghan special forces unit.

US army chief says death toll of Afghan security forces is unsustainable Read more

Defence ministry officials said the Taliban had used the Humvee, which had been captured from Afghan forces, as a bomb in order to breach the military fortifications.

Hussein Ali Baligh, a member of the local provincial council, said: “This morning, around 7am, a Humvee entered the NDS block in the city … about 150 NDS personnel were present at the time of the attack. The Humvee exploded right after entering the compound. The building has totally been collapsed.” At least two gunmen followed up the attack before being killed themselves.

He said the attack sparked concerns in the province over how a Humvee that had been in the hands of government forces could pass through checkpoints while packed with explosives. “It shows the weakness of our forces,” he said. “Our forces are brave, but their commanders have weaknesses.”

Sharif Hotak, a member of the provincial council in Maidan Wardak, said he had seen the bodies of 35 Afghan forces personnel in hospital. “Many more were killed. Several bodies were transported to Kabul city and many injured were transferred to hospitals in Kabul,” said Hotak, adding that “the government was hiding the accurate casualty figures to prevent a further dip in morale of the Afghan forces”.

Government officials in Maidan Wardak and Kabul declined to comment when asked if they were obscuring the death toll.

Two senior officials in the interior ministry said the exact casualty figure was not being disclosed to prevent unrest within the armed forces. “I have been told not to make the death toll figures public. It is frustrating to hide the facts,” said a senior interior ministry official in Kabul.

The office of the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, said the “enemies of the country” had carried out an attack against NDS personnel in Maidan Shahr, the provincial capital. “They killed and wounded a number of our beloved and honest sons,” he said.

He added: “Terrorist groups and their foreign supporters cannot weaken the high morale of our brave security and defence forces, because they have a great will to repress terrorists.” Ghani ordered the officials to investigate this attack.

In recent years, the Afghan government has stopped releasing detailed casualty figures. Last year, Ghani said 28,000 Afghan police officers and soldiers had been killed since 2015, breaking the longstanding suppression of casualty data.

Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for the attack. Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Islamist militant group, claimed it had killed 190 people.

Last week, Taliban fighters set off a car bomb outside a highly fortified compound in Kabul, killing at least five people and wounding more than 110 Afghans and expats.

Some analysts have suggested the recent increase in the intensity of Taliban attacks is a ploy by the group to gain the upper hand in ongoing talks with the US Afghan envoy. </s> BAGHLAN-E-MARKAZI, Afghanistan -- In a chaotic weekend of violence throughout Afghanistan, dozens of police officers, soldiers and civilians were killed by insurgents who, in four separate attacks, overran a military base, killed a police chief, destroyed a police post and bombed a memorial event.

In the capital, Kabul, a commemoration for a man some Afghans regard as a hero but others decry as a war criminal turned violent Sunday as suicide bombers attacked attendees, killing at least two people. Police arrested more than 100 attendees for shooting in the air.

But the deadliest single incident was the destruction by Taliban insurgents of an army base in the northern Baghlan province on Sunday, with at least 22 and as many as 40 security force members killed, local officials said.

The military installation was the second major base to fall to the insurgents in Baghlan province in the past month, and the third in northern Afghanistan during the same period.

Abdul Hai Nemati, the governor of Baghlan province, said the Afghan army base at Mangalha village, in the Baghlan-e-Markazi district just north of the provincial capital of Pul-i-Kumri, had been surrounded by insurgents.

A senior police official said the insurgents had captured the Mangalha base by Sunday and had killed 40 soldiers and national and local police officers at that installation and at smaller outposts in the area.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

A spokesman at the Defense Ministry in Kabul, Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed, claimed that local officials' description of the military facility as a base was inaccurate.

Jawed said it was a "check post" that included representatives of the Afghan army and other units. Jawed also denied that the Taliban had captured it, saying it had been abandoned by defenders.

Mohammad Safdar Mohseni, head of the Baghlan provincial council, said that even before the main base fell, the death toll Saturday was 22: 16 army soldiers, four police special forces officers and two local police officers.

Mangalha village was once a Taliban stronghold. The insurgents surrounded the military base last year, but the government reclaimed control of the area.

The insurgents destroyed another Afghan military base and a nearby police post in Baghlan province on Aug. 15, killing 39 soldiers and policemen, according to local officials. That base was also in Baghlan-e-Markazi district, in neighboring Alawuddin village.

Officials said the loss of the two bases put the entire district at risk and endangered travel on the country's main north-south highway between the capital and northern Afghanistan.

"After the first base collapsed, other military posts are collapsing one after another," said the provincial council chairman, Mohseni. "The Taliban seized a huge amount of weapons, ammunition and vehicles from these collapsed posts. This is a big threat for the security of Baghlan province. The forces on the ground were not supported; they did not receive any reinforcement."

The earlier defeat in Baghlan came a day after another northern base fell, at Chinese Camp, in Faryab province, where all 106 soldiers of an Afghan army company were either killed or captured by the insurgents.

Elsewhere, Taliban insurgents in central Afghanistan attacked the headquarters of Day Mirdad district in Maidan Wardak province on Sunday, killing 10 police officers, including a district chief, and setting off a gunbattle, according to Hakmat Durani, spokesman for the police chief of Maidan Wardak province. He added that dozens of insurgents were killed in retaliatory airstrikes by the air force and that reinforcements were being sent to the area.

In a separate attack late Saturday, militants targeted a checkpoint in the western Herat province, killing nine security force members and wounding six others, said Gelani Farhad, the provincial governor's spokesman. He blamed the attack on the Taliban, saying about 10 insurgents were killed and five wounded during the ensuing gunbattle.

Deaths of Afghan security forces have steadily risen in recent years, as the international coalition has mostly withdrawn and left most of the fighting to the Afghans. In the first 10 months of 2016, the number of Afghan police and soldiers who died totaled 6,785, an average of more than 20 a day, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction, a U.S. government agency.

Since then, the agency said, the U.S. military has classified casualty information as secret at the request of the Afghan government. Many local analysts say fatalities have likely increased.

In Kabul, hundreds of gunmen took to the streets Sunday, blocking traffic and firing their weapons into the air, defying a ban on such celebrations in honor of Ahmad Shah Massoud, a leader who was killed by al-Qaida in 2001. Health officials said 13 people were hospitalized, struck by falling bullets.

Young people brandishing knives and machetes joined the unruly mourning processions, and the city's police made more than 100 arrests for public disorder offenses, seizing dozens of weapons and confiscating 30 cars used in the processions, according to Hashmat Stanikzai, a police spokesman.

The raucous and often violent processions have been an annual feature in Kabul for many years. Massoud is revered as the leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban, but he is regarded by other Afghan groups as a war criminal involved in the mass murder of opponents.

Massoud's family and old comrades distanced themselves from the day's events.

The scenes on Sunday shocked many people.

"I think everyone has had enough," Saad Mohseni, director of the MOBY Group and a man known as Afghanistan's media mogul, said in a tweet.

"They can commemorate at a stadium or somewhere out of the city. Kabul, a city of 5 million, cannot get hijacked because of a few hundred people," Mohseni wrote.

At Massoud Square, near the U.S. Embassy, security officials shot and apparently killed a man they said was a would-be suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest. Later, another suicide bomber, this time on a motorcycle, attacked a Massoud procession, killing at least two people, according to Public Health Ministry spokesman Wahid Majroh. He said another 10 people were hospitalized, some in critical condition.

Information for this article was contributed by Najim Rahim and Rod Nordland of The New York Times; by Sayed Salahuddin of The Washington Post; and by staff members of The Associated Press.
A U.S. soldier is also killed in a separate bombing in Wardak Province.