KABUL, Afghanistan: The Taliban launched a sustained assault on an Afghan intelligence complex in the city of Aybak on Monday, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 60, part of a wave of bloody violence in the north of the country.
With the peace talks between the insurgency and the Afghan government stalled for months, the Taliban have stepped up their offensives, creating one of the deadliest years of the long war.
On Monday, insurgents detonated a car bomb at the entrance to the provincial headquarters of the Afghan National Security Directorate in Aybak, the capital of Samangan province, some 150 kilometers northwest of Kabul.
The blast, which also hit a nearby municipal complex, opened the way for fighters to enter the intelligence agency complex, where they fought against Afghan forces for hours, said Sefatullah Samangani, the province’s deputy governor.
Samangani said 11 intelligence agency officers, mostly men but at least one woman, were killed and another 63 were wounded. Only 15 of the wounded were intelligence officers and the rest civilians.
“The explosion was so strong that it smashed people’s windows three kilometers away,” said Samangani. “The intelligence agency building and the municipal building are no longer usable.”
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed that the insurgency was behind the attack.
A major attack inside a city appears to violate an agreement between the United States and the Taliban, who signed a preliminary peace agreement in February that began the withdrawal of US forces. And it broke with Taliban tactics in recent months of escalating violence in the countryside without claiming many of the attacks, while cities were largely spared except for the hit-and-run killings.
The deal, in which the Taliban guaranteed they would not attack US targets, has been criticized because it had no guarantee of a ceasefire with the Afghans. But US officials have said they had an understanding with the Taliban that insurgents would reduce their levels of violence by up to 80 percent and would not attack in major cities and population centers.
Afghanistan’s President Ashraf Ghani called on the Taliban to stop what he described as “criminal and inhuman” attacks that could derail peace efforts.
“Resorting to violence and killing people to leverage the negotiations is the worst approach that, unfortunately, the Taliban have taken,” Mr. Ghani said in a statement.
Violence continues unabated as the poor nation grapples with the spread of Covid-19 and its economic ramifications. Although official figures are dubious, with extremely low testing capacity, the country’s health ministry has recorded nearly 35,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths.
The February deal was expected to pave the way in 10 days for the most difficult part of the peace process: talks with the Afghan government about a future power-sharing agreement. But those talks have been repeatedly delayed by complications with a prisoner swap that was presented as a precondition for negotiations. The US deal with the Taliban called for the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghan security forces held by insurgents, a clause that angered many Afghan officials.
After resisting for weeks, the Afghan government began a gradual release of Taliban prisoners, under strong pressure from the Trump administration. But with more than 4,000 Taliban freed, the last leg again faces difficulties, as the Afghan government says it cannot free some 500 of those on the Taliban list because they consider themselves dangerous and are accused of serious crimes.
Javid Faisal, spokesman for the Afghanistan National Security Council, said the government has proposed that the Taliban suggest new names instead of the 592 that cannot be released. It is unclear whether the insurgents have accepted that.
“We have told them that we are ready to free alternative people,” said Faisal.
The ongoing attack in Samangan limits the bloody 24 hours in northern Afghanistan, where the Taliban launched attacks in several provinces, authorities said.
At least 20 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in nighttime assaults in two districts of Kunduz province. In Badakhshan province, the Taliban attacked security posts in the Arghanj Khwa district, killing at least seven of the security forces.
Fahim Abed contributed reporting.
