KABUL – *Sayed Munir, the district police chief of Khoghyani district inGhazni province, and three other policemen were killed in clashes with theTaliban early Tuesday, provincial police officials confirmed in astatement.*
In addition, three other policemen were wounded.
The statement said that the security forces launched military operations inKhoghyani, Andar, Qarabagh, Muqor and the center of the province to clearthe areas of insurgents.
According to the statement, in the past 24 hours “33 Taliban were killed,and four others were wounded.”
“At about 1:25am the Taliban launched a large attack on Khoghyani districtin which the police chief of the district and three other policemen werekilled and three more policemen were wounded,” it said.
However, the statement did not provide further details about the operations.
The Taliban has not yet commented.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said the Afghan security forceshave doubled their offensive operations against insurgents, their hideoutsand strongholds in many regions of the country after President Ashraf Ghanideclared an end to government’s unilateral ceasefire with the Taliban.
Following the end of the unilateral ceasefire, air operations and securityforces’ operations have been doubled against insurgents, compared toprevious months, the MoD said.
Defense officials have said that currently the Afghan security forces arecarrying out their planned, anti-insurgent campaign in at least nineprovinces.
According to Afghan military officials, the operations are also aimed atboosting security ahead of the scheduled parliamentary and district councilelections.
Kunar, Nangarhar, Farah, Helmand, Kunduz, Faryab, Uruzgan and Ghazni areamong the provinces where security forces are currently trying to tackleinsurgents. Security forces are also conducting operations in the easternand western regions of the country.