Monitoring Desk adds: Afghan officials and Taliban sources in Afghanistan confirmed the rebels have overrun another district in the southern Helmand province, which borders Pakistan.
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Fighting that has raged for the past week in the Archi and Qalay-i-Zal districts of Kunduz province is continuing, the governor’s spokesman Mahmood Danish said.
Earlier, his deputy, Abdul Majeed Akhonzada, told The Associated Press that Kanashin district has “fallen into Taliban hands”.
Kareem Atal, the director of Helmand’s provincial council, said that battles between government forces and militants have been raging in the Kanashin district since late Friday, when the Taliban took control.
While troops have been deployed to retake the district, it would be hard because all its police checkpoints have been destroyed by the Taliban. Earlier Taliban attacks in Khanshin district were repelled twice in recent months.
Residents, however, prefer the regularly-spaced small checkpoints, officials have said, as they make them feel safe.
The district produces most of the opium in the world and this will fund the insurgency of the group.
Helmand is Afghanistan’s largest province and is notorious for being a major poppy-producing region.
A report released on Friday by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction said that Afghanistan’s government lost control or influence in almost five percent of its territory between January and May.
Data reveals 36 districts were under insurgent control and 104 were at risk.
In a brief statement sent to VOA, he said the insurgents inflicted heavy casualties on Afghan security forces before they abandoned Khanashin.
The explosion in the capital comes a little over a week after a suicide attack in Kabul by Islamic State (IS) fighters on a Hazara minority demonstration left more than 80 people dead and 230 injured.
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A 40-year-old man was killed instantly and a 23-year-old man died later of his injuries, Ahmadi said.
