At least 26 Afghan soldiers have been killed and 13 wounded in a Taliban attack on a military base in southern Kandahar province, the defence ministry said Wednesday, the latest blow to the country's struggling security forces. The militants “attacked an army camp in the Karzali area of the Khakrez district of Kandahar last night,” General Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said on Wednesday. "Afghan soldiers resisted the attack and the fight is now over, they [Taliban fighters] were unable to take over the base," he said, adding that more than 80 fighters were also killed in the counterattack. In a statement, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it had killed 74 soldiers and captured six others. Afghan security forces -- beset by a high death toll, desertions and non-existent "ghost soldiers" on the payroll -- have been struggling to beat back the insurgents since US-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in December 2014. Casualties among Afghan security forces soared by 35 percent in 2016, with 6,800 soldiers and police killed, according to US watchdog SIGAR. The insurgents have carried out more complex attacks against security forces in 2017, with SIGAR describing troop casualties in the early part of the year as "shockingly high".
According to the Defense Ministry, between 26 and 30 military personnel are dead and over 80 Taliban militants have been either killed or wounded amid intense fighting at a military base in Kandahar Province.