Taliban fighters have mounted a co-ordinated assault on the northern Afghan city of Kunduz overnight, attacking from four directions and entering the city itself.

Sheer Ali Kamal, commander of the 808 Tandar police zone in Kunduz, said the attack began around midnight (0630 AEDT Monday) and fighting was still going on in and around the city.

"We are putting all our efforts together to push them back," he said.

Military helicopters were flying overhead and gunfire could be heard in the city.

Kunduz, which fell briefly to the Taliban a year ago, has seen repeated bouts of heavy fighting as the insurgents have sought to repeat their success of 2015.

Monday's attack, a day before the start of a major donor conference in Brussels, underlines the precarious security situation in Afghanistan, where government forces are estimated to have control over no more than two thirds of the country.

"A massive operation started on Kunduz capital from four directions early this morning," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in his official Twitter account.

He said the Nawabad area with four checkpoints had been captured and a number of soldiers had been killed. It was not immediately possible to verify the claim.

A Reuters reporter saw at least five Taliban fighters armed with AK-47 assault rifles, machines guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the city.

The attack came as the Taliban have stepped up operations in different parts of Afghanistan, including the strategic southern province of Helmand, where they have been threatening the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

The fall of Kunduz last year was one of the most serious blows suffered by the Western-backed government in Kabul since the withdrawal of most international troops at the end of 2014.

Although the insurgents abandoned the city after a few days, the demonstration that they were able to take a provincial capital underlined their growing strength and exposed serious flaws in Afghan security forces.

A Taliban raid on Tarin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan in the south, on September 8 also sparked fears of another collapse like that in Kunduz last year.

Mujahid said in the Taliban statement that the militants were pressing ahead with their assaults on Helmand and Uruzgan.

Afghanistan's international partners are due to start a two-day conference in Brussels on Tuesday, where they are expected to approve maintaining billions of dollars in funding for the government over the next four years.</s>Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) Afghan government forces are fighting on the ground and from the air to defend the northern city of Kunduz following a pre-dawn offensive by Taliban militants Monday.

"This time, the Taliban won't be able to capture any part of Kunduz," said Mahfoz Akbari, spokesman for the police in Kunduz, speaking to CNN by telephone.

Akbari was referring to the Taliban's brief capture of the strategically important city in September 2015.

A Taliban spokesman and Afghan government officials gave similar descriptions of how militants launched a pre-dawn attack on the city from four different directions.

"Our Mujahideen are advancing rapidly inside Kunduz," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed in a phone call with CNN.

An aid worker living in Kunduz described an eruption of gunfire early Monday morning.

"Heavy fighting is still going on," Ehsanullah Sadiqi told CNN, speaking by phone from Kunduz.

He said traumatic memories are still fresh for much of the city's population after the Taliban capture of Kunduz in late September 2015.

"A lot of people who fled Kunduz last year at this time when the Taliban had taken over the city returned to Kunduz. So the number of people trying to flee again today was huge," Sadiqi said. He described city streets that are almost completely deserted.

The US military in Afghanistan appears to be downplaying the likelihood of Kunduz falling once again.

"We are not observing evidence via our internal means to support the reports that Kunduz is under significant attack," Brigadier General Charles Cleveland wrote in an email to CNN.

He characterized the current clashes in Kunduz as "ongoing sporadic fighting."

The Taliban claimed Monday to have the capital cities of two southern provinces, Helmand and Uruzgan, surrounded and "under severe military operations."

The US is approaching the 15th anniversary of its war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is the longest foreign conflict in US history.

But US forces have carried out more than 700 airstrikes in the first eight months of 2016 in large part to support Afghan troops on the ground.

"We believe that there has been a 20% increase in ANDSF [Afghan National Defense and Security Forces] casualties, so far this year compared to this time in 2015," wrote Colonel Michael Lawhorn, Director of Public Affairs for US Forces Afghanistan, in an email to CNN.</s>ISLAMABAD — Fighting erupted in northern Afghanistan after Taliban insurgents staged a pre-dawn coordinated offensive on the strategically important city of Kunduz, which they briefly overran a year ago.

Local officials say the Islamist insurgency assaulted the provincial capital from four directions and fought their way into the city.

Residents told VOA that when they woke up Monday they saw Taliban fighters in the streets of Khakani, a western neighborhood of the provincial capital, where insurgents had taken up positions in civilian houses and were firing at Afghan security forces.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Dawlat Waziri told VOA national security forces backed by air power in a counter offensive pushed back the insurgents and fighting was still raging on the outskirts of Kunduz.

“Their (Taliban) attacks have been repulsed and they have suffered heavy casualties and there is no serious threat to the Kunduz city,” Waziri asserted.

The United States military backed the government claims, saying it is closely monitoring the situation in Kunduz and coordinating with Afghan partners to assist, but it also played down reports of any immediate threat to the city.

“At this point, we are not observing evidence via our internal means to support the reports that Kunduz is under significant attack,” U.S. military spokesman Brigadier General Charles Cleveland told VOA.

He said that both the NATO-led Resolute Support mission and the U.S. military continue to train, advise and assist Afghan forces and “will continue to do so and position our capabilities, to include air support, throughout the area as needed.”

For its part, a spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, claimed its fighters inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan forces and were still in control of parts of Kunduz.

Separately, the Taliban also launched attacks on the Nawa district of the largest Afghan province of Helmand where insurgents are in control of several districts.

The provincial government in a statement confirmed killing of the district police chief in the fighting but denied reports any state installation was overrun by the Taliban. Afghan forces, it said, killed at least 45 insurgents, including their district commander in the fighting.

Defense ministry spokesman Waziri acknowledged intense fighting in the southern province has been raging but dismissed concerns its capital city, Lashkar Gah, is on the verge of collapse to the Taliban.

The Taliban captured Kunduz in late September, 2015, dealing a blow to internationally-trained Afghan forces. This was the first time the Islamist group had overrun a provincial capital after it was ousted from power by a U.S.-led military coalition in 2001.

The latest fighting comes as President Ashraf Ghani and his governing partner Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah left for Brussels to participate in Tuesday’s conference on Afghanistan to secure financial aid from the international community for next four years to support reconstruction efforts in their war-torn nation.

The European Union and Afghanistan are co-hosting the conference focusing on conflicts in Syria and Iraq as well as the worst migration crisis in decades is driving international attention from the Afghan problem.

Afghan leaders plan to brief the gathering on progress they have achieved in addressing challenges of security, corruption, economic and human development.

While efforts to engage the Taliban in peace talks have not yet produced results, Ghani is expected to present last week’s peace deal he signed with the second largest Afghan insurgent group, Hizb-e-Islami, as a major step towards ending the conflict.
• No consensus in Afghanistan on how to deal with Taliban</s>In this photograph taken on Monday, Afghan National Army commandos take position during a military operation in Helmand province (AFP photo)

KUNDUZ, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters entered the northern Afghan city of Kunduz on Monday, almost exactly a year after they briefly seized it in their biggest success of the 15-year war, while heavy fighting in the south underscored the country's deteriorating security.

Sheer Ali Kamawal, commander of the 808 Tandar police zone in Kunduz, said the attack began at around midnight and fighting was going on in and around the city. Some Taliban fighters had entrenched themselves in homes.

The fighters appear to have slipped through a defensive security line set up around Kunduz, entering the city itself from four directions before clashes broke out, witnesses in the city said.

In Kabul, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, spokesman for Afghanistan's NATO-led force, said it was ready to provide support if needed.

"At this point, we are not observing evidence via our internal means to support the reports that Kunduz is under significant attack," he said in an e-mailed statement.

With fighting intensifying across the country, the attack on Kunduz, a day before a major donor conference in Brussels, underlined Afghanistan's precarious security situation and the Taliban's ability to strike against important targets.

Government forces, fighting with limited NATO-force support following the end of the main international combat mission in 2014, are estimated to have control over at most two-thirds of the country.

In Kunduz, police spokesman Mahfozullah Akbari said security forces were preparing to drive out the fighters, who had infiltrated the Khak Kani area in the city's southwest.

"The Taliban are inside some civilian houses and we have to carry out operations very carefully," he said.

Military helicopters flew overhead and gunfire could be heard in Kunduz, where a year ago to the day, Afghan troops backed by US air strikes and special forces were battling to drive out Taliban who had raised their flag in the city centre.

Residents piled into cars and trailers to escape the city centre and shops were shut. Several checkpoints were burned out but there was little actual fighting as security forces held back from confrontation in the city centre.

However, witnesses saw Taliban fighters armed with AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades walking around the deserted streets of the city, entering homes and taking up position on rooftops.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in his official Twitter account that four government checkpoints in Kunduz had been captured and some soldiers had been killed.

"A massive operation started on Kunduz capital from four directions early this morning," he said.

The renewed attack on Kunduz forced officials to cancel a ceremony planned for Monday to commemorate the first anniversary of a US air strike that destroyed a hospital run by the international charity Médecins Sans Frontières during the fighting.

The assault on Kunduz came as the Taliban have stepped up attacks in different parts of Afghanistan, including the southern province of Helmand, where they have been threatening the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

On Monday, Taliban fighters, positioned just across the Helmand river from the centre of Lashkar Gah, also took control of Nawa district to the south, killing a district police chief, officials said.

Heavy fighting has also continued along the main road to Tarin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan, also in the south, where a Taliban raid on September 8 sparked fears of another collapse like that in Kunduz last year.

The raid on Tarin Kot was beaten back but alarmed security officials because the militants were able to enter the city without significant resistance after police abandoned dozens of checkpoints.

The fall of Kunduz last year was one of the most serious blows suffered by the Western-backed government in Kabul since the withdrawal of most international troops in 2014.

Although the insurgents abandoned Kunduz after a few days, the capture of a provincial capital underlined their growing strength and exposed flaws in Afghan security forces and the city has remained effectively besieged ever since.

"Every day the militants come to the city and are pushed back by security forces," said Amruddin Wali, a member of the provincial council as he stood with security forces on the edges of the city. "There is killing and fighting every day."</s>Sheer Ali Kamawal, commander of the 808 Tandar police zone in Kunduz, said the attack began at around midnight (1930 GMT Sunday) and fighting was going on in and around the city. Some Taliban fighters had entrenched themselves in homes.

The fighters appear to have slipped through a defensive security line set up around Kunduz, entering the city itself before clashes broke out, witnesses in the city said.

In Kabul, Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, spokesman for Afghanistan's NATO-led force, said he was aware of reports of sporadic fighting in Kunduz but said he had not seen evidence of a major Taliban offensive.

"At this point, we are not observing evidence via our internal means to support the reports that Kunduz is under significant attack," he said in an emailed statement.

Police spokesman Mahfozullah Akbari said security forces were preparing to drive out the fighters, who had infiltrated the Khak Kani area in the city's southwest.

"The Taliban are inside some civilian houses and we have to carry out operations very carefully," he said.

The interior ministry said reinforcements were being sent.

Military helicopters flew overhead and gunfire could be heard in Kunduz, where a year ago to the day, Afghan troops backed by U.S. air strikes and special forces battled to drive out Taliban who had raised their flag in the city center.

On Monday, a Reuters reporter saw at least five Taliban fighters armed with AK-47 assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the city. He saw fighters entering homes and taking up position on roofs.

The attack, a day before the start of a major donor conference in Brussels, underlines Afghanistan's precarious security. Government forces are estimated to have control over at most two-thirds of the country.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in his official Twitter account four government checkpoints in Kunduz had been captured and some soldiers had been killed.

"A massive operation started on Kunduz capital from four directions early this morning," he said.

The attack came as the Taliban have stepped up attacks in different parts of Afghanistan, including the southern province of Helmand, where they have been threatening the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.

On Monday, Taliban fighters, positioned just across the Helmand river from the center of Lashkar Gah, also took control of Nawa district to the south, killing a district police chief, officials said.

Heavy fighting has also continued along the main highway to Tarin Kot, the provincial capital of Uruzgan, also in the south, where a Taliban raid on Sept. 8 sparked fears of another collapse like that in Kunduz last year.

The raid on Tarin Kot was beaten back but alarmed security officials because the militants were able to enter the city without significant resistance after police abandoned dozens of checkpoints.

The fall of Kunduz last year was one of the most serious blows suffered by the Western-backed government in Kabul since the withdrawal of most international troops at the end of 2014.

Although the insurgents abandoned Kunduz after a few days, their capture of a provincial capital underlined their growing strength and exposed flaws in Afghan security forces.

Afghanistan's international partners are expected to approve maintaining billions of dollars in funding for the government over the next four years at the two-day Brussels meeting.</s>Taliban insurgents launched an assault on Kunduz on Monday, triggering intense fighting and forcing residents to hide in their homes, one year after the militants briefly took control of the strategic Afghan city.

Government helicopters were targeting gunmen from the air in a bid to repel the attack, a day before President Ashraf Ghani is due to meet world powers at a major donors conference in Brussels.

“People of Kunduz are panicked and trying to flee but they are caught in the middle of fighting,” Ghulam Rabbani Rabbani, Kunduz provincial council member, told AFP.

“Please help us to get rid of this chaos and crises, or our people will be killed,” he said, warning that the province was on the verge of collapse.

Kunduz resident Abdullah, 28, said he was unable to move.

“We are very hungry and we do not have access to food at the moment. The city is deserted, the shops are closed… The whole city is surrounded by the Taliban.

The insurgents, who are known to exaggerate their claims, said they had killed multiple soldiers and were making “rapid” progress.

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack had been launched from four directions, and that the insurgents had also captured four police checkpoints and were spreading throughout the city’s neighbourhoods.

“We are making rapid advances; a number of enemy forces were killed and wounded, and the rest are on the verge of fleeing and are flustered,” he said.

Mahmood Danish, a spokesman for the Kunduz governor told AFP Taliban fighters “are using civilian houses as shelters,” adding there were militants in the southern part of the city, including near Kunduz regional hospital.

Kabul officials downplayed the strength of the attack, but admitted that one policeman had been killed and four injured.

NATO said it was aware of “ongoing sporadic fighting” and was working to assist Afghan forces in the area, including with air support.

“At this point, we are not observing evidence via our internal means to support the reports that Kunduz is under significant attack,” said NATO spokesman Brigadier General Charles Cleveland.

The attack comes just over a year after the Taliban overran Kunduz, the only provincial capital to have fallen into their hands since they were ousted from power in 2001. Government control of the city has been shaky ever since.

During that attack Afghan forces were in disarray and US Green Beret special operations troops ended up helping the fight over several gruelling days, according to a declassified US military report.

On Monday, however, the Afghan interior ministry said security forces were “fighting bravely against the terrorists”.

Ghani will meet with world leaders in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday in a bid to secure financial aid from the international community up to 2020.

The meeting, 15 years after the US invasion of 2001, will try to drum up support despite donor fatigue compounded by conflicts in Syria and Iraq plus the worst migration crisis since World War II.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are among those who will join hosts Ghani and EU President Donald Tusk.

Financial support is “crucial”, officials said ahead of the conference.

“Nobody can afford for Afghanistan to destabilise again,” a senior EU official added.

On Sunday, the Taliban issued a statement accusing foreign contractors of pocketing aid money, and calling for the conference to result in the withdrawal of international forces.

After seizing Kunduz on September 28, 2015, the Taliban held the city for two days and eventually announced they were withdrawing from the outskirts on October 15.

The United Nations said the assault left 289 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

A US airstrike during the battle to dislodge the jihadists hit a hospital operated by aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres on October 3, killing 42 people.</s>KUNDUZ, Afghanistan: The Taliban launched an assault on Kunduz, which was the scene of intense fighting on Monday, one year after the Islamist militia briefly took over the northern Afghan city following a lightning offensive, an AFP correspondent said.

The assault came just a day before President Ashraf Ghani is due to meet world powers at a major donors conference in Brussels.

The attack began in the early hours at the southern and eastern approaches to the provincial capital where the militants were engaged in battles with government forces, he said.

Two Afghan army helicopters were flying over the city, which was deserted, with streets empty and shops closed.

The attack comes just over a year after the Taliban overran Kunduz, the only provincial capital to have fallen into their hands since they were ousted from power in 2001.

Government control of the city has been shaky ever since.

Ghani will meet with world leaders in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday in a bid to secure financial aid from the international community up to 2020 to rebuild his war-ravaged country.

The meeting will try to drum up support from an international community suffering from aid fatigue as it grapples with conflicts in Syria and Iraq plus the worst migration crisis since World War II.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are among those who will join hosts Ghani and EU President Donald Tusk.

The conference comes as Afghanistan struggles to negotiate peace with a resurgent Taliban and other militant groups who continue to wage a bloody insurgency nearly 15 years after the US invasion.

In September, Kabul signed a peace deal with notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who heads the largely dormant Hezb-i-Islami militant group, a move that will have little impact on security but is a symbolic victory in efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Financial support is “crucial” in order “to bring about a new strategic shift towards stabilisation and possibly peace” in Afghanistan, despite the country not having “been in the headlines for many years”, officials said ahead of the Brussels conference.

“Nobody can afford for Afghanistan to destabilize again,” a senior EU official added.

After seizing Kunduz on September 28, 2015, the Taliban held the city for two days and eventually announced they were withdrawing from the outskirts on October 15.

The United Nations said that battle left 289 people dead and hundreds more wounded.

A US air strike during the battle to dislodge the jihadists hit a hospital operated by aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres on October 3, killing 42 people including patients and medical staff.</s>KABUL, Afghanistan — Fierce gunbattles raged for a second day Tuesday across Afghanistan's embattled northern city of Kunduz after the Taliban launched a new, multipronged attack on the city they had briefly captured last year, officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said Afghan security forces were "trying to secure the city" but that Taliban gunmen are hiding in residential homes, making progress slow and difficult.

The Taliban began their attack from all directions early the previous day. They briefly raised a flag over a main intersection before being repelled from the city center.

Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, the head of the Kunduz provincial council, said the city has become a battlefield, with fighting going on in many different areas on Tuesday.

"We can't go to our (council) office because the area is under the control of the Taliban," he said, adding that council members instead were gathering at a location about 1.5 kilometers (about a mile) from the city.

Taliban militants have planted mines in different areas of the city, making movement extremely difficult, he said. "Local people are trapped in their homes."

The city fell to the Taliban a year ago before the insurgents were beaten back by Afghan forces with the help of U.S. airstrikes. It is the capital of Kunduz province, a breadbasket region that borders Tajikistan to the north and sits on a major crossroad in the country.

Kunduz's fall last year sent shockwaves across the country and among Afghanistan's backers in the international community as it marked the Taliban's first capture of an urban center since the group was driven from power in 2001. The city came under threat again in April, when U.S.-backed Afghan forces pushed the Taliban back into surrounding districts.

U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland said the Afghan military had moved reinforcements into Kunduz overnight.

"While there is sporadic fighting, the government controls Kunduz," he said, adding that "U.S. forces ... will provide support as needed."

While Cleveland said there had been no U.S. airstrikes overnight, "there was one US air-to ground engagement by helicopter on the outskirts of Kunduz city to defend friendly forces."</s>KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan officials say that Taliban insurgents have launched a coordinated attack on Kunduz in the northeast of the country.

Mahmod Danish, spokesman for the provincial governor in Kunduz, said Afghan forces had repelled the Monday morning attack.

The insurgents launched attacks from different directions but security forces pushed them back, Danish said.

Mohammadullah Bahej, head of the police coordination office in Kunduz, says his forces were battling Taliban fighters on the outskirts of the city.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the Taliban had captured several checkpoints in the city.

Kunduz was overrun by the Taliban in September last year, the first time the insurgents had taken a major urban center since launching their insurgency 15 years ago. But government forces took back the city within days.</s>KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan forces battled the Taliban in the northern city of Kunduz for the third straight day on Wednesday and American helicopters provided air support to troops on the ground in the wake of the multipronged attack on the city launched by insurgents this week.

The fighting in Kunduz, which fell briefly to the Taliban a year ago, came as Afghanistan's leaders and officials from over 70 nations gathered in Brussels, seeking to drum up billions of dollars for the cash-strapped Kabul government as it battles the powerful Taliban insurgency and rampant corruption.

Afghan Gen. Qasim Jungalbagh, the provincial police chief, said Taliban gunmen launched fresh attacks on Afghan forces in Kunduz from the south and east early on Wednesday.

He said "clearance operations" have begun inside the city but that heavy clashes continue on the outskirts. "Once again insurgents attacked our forces from two different directions and heavy battles are taking place to the south and east of the city," Jungalbagh said.

Since pushing into Kunduz on Monday and briefly hoisting their flag at a main intersection, the Taliban were pushed back but their fighters hunkered down in residential homes, slowing the counter-offensive by the Afghans.

The U.S. military was providing air support to Afghan forces fighting Wednesday to secure a number of areas in the city, U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Charlie Cleveland said.

The U.S. military spokesman described the fighting as "sporadic," saying that since Tuesday night, "U.S. forces have conducted two engagements from the air to defend friendly forces." He did not provide further details.

Jungalbagh said 42 insurgents have been killed and more than 25 others wounded in the battles. Earlier, the Defense Ministry said five Afghan security personnel were killed and 13 others wounded.

Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the Kunduz provincial council, said food prices have almost tripled since the attack began and that food, water and electricity are all in short supply.

The Taliban said in a statement emailed to media that they have taken the Kunduz office of the national intelligence agency but the claim could not be immediately confirmed and the insurgents regularly exaggerate battlefield successes.

Kunduz, a major crossroads in the country's north, briefly fell to the Taliban a year ago before they were beaten back by Afghan forces with the help of U.S. airstrikes.

Associated Press writer Lynne O'Donnell in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
The Taliban launches an offensive entering the city of Kunduz which they briefly captured last year.