Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers stand guard in front of a shop burned during the Taliban attack on Kandahar Airport in Kandahar, December 9, 2015.
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Dozens of people have been killed in a Taliban attack on a heavily fortified civilian and military airfield in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The airport compound in Kandahar houses Afghan military and civilian sections as well as a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation base. In addition to the 37 people killed, another 35 were injured.
The UN Mission expresses its honest condolences to the families of the victims and wishes a speedy recovery to the injured.
The coordinated assault took place overnight and involved an entire squad of suicide bombers attacking Afghan security forces.
The Taliban have been ramping up attacks on government and foreign targets despite the onset of the harsh winter season when the fighting usually winds down.
Co-operation between Afghanistan and Pakistan is essential to ending the insurgency by the Afghan Taliban, who have bases on both sides of the countries’ porous border.
“It seems that the insurgents failed to get inside the base itself, so it’s not a security breach on the scale of the Camp Bastion attack in 2012”, the official said.
The Taliban said it carried out the attack and is holding hostages in homes and at a school, the BBC reported. Adoctor at a local hospital, said 41people (37 civilians and 4 soldiers) had been killed.
Sharif also spoke of Pakistan’s aim to repatriate the 2 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan, some of whom have been in Pakistan for decades.
And the Taliban attacked Afghan security forces and took control of Khanisheen district in southern Helmand province, according to the head of provincial council of Helmand province.
Militant violence has increased across Afghanistan since the departure of most North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and United States forces previous year.
An aid request to the worldwide community as a whole was approved by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation foreign ministers last week, but Sajjan said it will be treated in the same manner as other urgent security matters.
It is the biggest strike by the militants since late September when they seized the northern city of Kunduz and held it for days.
On Wednesday, Nabil posted a scathing post on Facebook criticizing Ghani’s visit to Pakistan for the Heart of Asia conference, which aims to bolster peace talks in the conflict-stricken country.
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Pakistan, which wields considerable influence over the Taliban, hosted a milestone first round of peace negotiations in July.
