ISLAMABAD – Seven Afghan soldiers were killed in a Taliban attack on a basein northern Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said, as local andinternational forces brace for another deadly winter.
According to the Afghan defence ministry, “terrorists” attacked a jointmilitary base in Dawlat Abad district of Balkh province near the Uzbekistanborder.
The base was shared between the army and the National Directorate ofSecurity (NDS), Afghanistan’s secretive intelligence agency.
“As a result of this attack, seven Afghan army soldiers died and threeothers were wounded. Meanwhile, in this attack, three NDS staff were alsoinjured,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said 20 soldiers had been killed inthe attack, including a commander.
“Six soldiers were wounded and four arrested. The base was captured,”Mujahid wrote on Twitter.
The attack comes one day after the Taliban claim responsibility for thedeath of an American special forces soldier, who was killed in Kunduzprovince, also in the north.
The Taliban said they had attacked the vehicle he was in, whereas the USmilitary said he died when a weapons cache he had been investigatingexploded.
Winter once marked a slowdown in the so-called ‘fighting season’, withTaliban fighters returning to their villages while snow and ice madeattacks more difficult to pull off.
But in recent years, the distinction between seasons has all but vanished.
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According to German intelligence officials at Camp Marmal, a German-runbase outside Mazar-i-sharif in Balkh, January 2019 saw one of thehighest-ever numbers of attacks in the north.
“If there is no game changer on the strategic level, it will be a ‘hot’winter,” one official told *AFP*.
“We are talking about two dozens of security incidents average per day”across Nato’s northern command, he added.
In October, local officials said a column of hundreds of Taliban fighterson motorbikes attacked Shortepa district police headquarters in Balkh,briefly capturing the facility.
The German intelligence official said the number was exaggerated, withlikely only “dozens” of fighters.
Still, it highlights how quickly Taliban fighters can amass and thendisperse back into the local population.
“There’s fierce fighting going on all through the year, meaning that theTaliban managed to expand into some territories that haven’t been theirtraditional ones,” the official said.
