Taliban attack in Afghanistan’s Logar kills eight security forces

A Taliban car bomb targeted a convoy of vehicles carrying Logar’s provincial governor and the head of the region’s intelligence agency on Sunday.

At least eight Afghan security forces were killed and 10 others were wounded. The officials were not injured. 

The explosives-packed car detonated on the main highway between Logar and Kabul, said Shahpoor Ahmadzai, the spokesman for Logar’s provincial police.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said in a statement that the group was responsible for the blast and that a “large number” of Afghan special forces had been killed or wounded.

The Taliban regularly inflate the number and type of casualties that result from their attacks. 

Logar is around 74 km south of the capital and is and is known as a strategic gateway to Kabul.

The Taliban have an active presence in most areas of the province. In recent weeks forces from Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the NDS, have raided Taliban hideouts in Logar. 

The Taliban have stepped up their attacks around the country, perhaps trying to get more political leverage. The group controls large areas of the country.

The US envoy to the region, Zalmay Khalilzad, has been trying to restart a peace process with the Taliban since September. He has made four trips to the region since then, meeting Taliban representatives in a number of countries.

The Taliban refuse to meet directly with the Afghan government which the group calls a “puppet” of the United States. 

A round of talks between the Taliban and the US that were to be held in Doha, Qatar earlier this month were cancelled by the Taliban after reported disagreements about the agenda.  

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies