Michael Fallon said during a one-day visit Thursday that security in Afghanistan is a global issue and Britain’s presence will help defeat terrorism.
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The Taliban has attacked a series of buses in northern Afghanistan, killing at least 16 people and taking dozens of others hostage, officials said.
A local official said that the passengers were abducted in the early hours of Tuesday after the Taliban insurgents established a post to stop the passenger buses and vehicles, reports the Khaama Press.
The demonstration has been organized days after the Taliban group committed a horrific attack against the passengers in northern Kunduz province. The Taliban briefly took over the province previous year, marking its first major victory since they were toppled by USA forces in 2001.
Security forces then rushed to the scene and killed the three other attackers after a 30-minute siege.
“They were identified as government policemen and soldiers by their fingerprints and based on accurate documents”, Mujahed said.
Kunduz is the most risky province in the north region, with the Taliban guerrillas there to targeting the government’s civilian and military employees.
The Taliban, who are waging a bloody insurgency to topple the foreign-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani, said they killed six and took 20 members of the Afghan security forces with them. “We do believe that the ANDSF has performed better this year than they were performing last year”, he said, using the acronym for the Afghan national troops.
Four suicide bombers were also killed in the process and twelve others, including a woman, injured.
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He also said the ANDSF had improved its “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capability, particularly down in the Helmand area, and the special operations capability continued to be really the pride of the ANDSF”.
