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Dozens Of Afghan Police Killed In Helmand

Mr Danish said the buses were travelling from the capital, Kabul, north-east to Takhar and Badakhshan provinces.

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Gunmen in Afghanistan killed nine bus passengers and kidnapped 170 on Tuesday outside the northern city of Kunduz in an attack blamed on Taliban insurgents, a provincial official said.

The Taliban on Tuesday pulled passengers from several buses in northern Afghanistan, killed at least 16 of them and took dozens of others hostage, officials said.

Hayatullah Quareshi, Aliabad district chief, said the attackers were wearing Afghan army uniforms.

According to residents, the militants were holding passengers in a local mosque, inspecting documents and questioning them for any government links.

The Taliban have so far not commented on the incident in Aliabad district in the volatile province of Kunduz, where the insurgents briefly overran the provincial capital in a stunning military victory past year.

The Taliban insurgents kidnapped at least 185 passengers after setting up a check post on the highway around 2 a.m. Afghanistan’s government has offered the new Taliban leader a choice: make peace or face the same fate as his predecessor, who was killed last week in a USA drone strike.

Niazi is deputy to Mullah Mohammad Rasool, who split with the Taliban last summer after Mullah Akhtar Mansoor was chosen to succeed the group’s late founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The brief capture by the Taliban of Kunduz previous year was a major blow to the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Afghan officials said that the dead were civilians.

Civilians are increasingly caught in the crosshairs of Afghanistan’s worsening conflict as the Taliban step up their annual spring offensive, launched in April against the Western-backed Kabul government.

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Under the new leadership of Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban have vowed that there will be no peace talks with the Afghan government.

Members of a breakaway faction of the Taliban fighters guard during a patrol in Shindand district of Herat province Afghanistan