Taliban militants raid checkpoints, kill 20 policemen in southern Afghanistan

In this file photograph, which was taken on March 23, 2017, Afghan policemen search passengers at a checkpoint in Lashkar Gah, in southern Afghanistan. (By AFP)

Taliban militants have killed at least 20 Afghan policemen and injured more than a dozen others during attacks on checkpoints in Afghanistan’s volatile south.

Afghan officials said the attacks occurred early on Sunday, when the militants stormed multiple security outposts in the southern province of Zabul.

“This morning, a group of Taliban militants armed with heavy and light weapons launched coordinated attacks on several police checkpoints in the Shah Joy district of Zabul Province, killing 20 policemen,” said Bismillah Afghanmal, the provincial governor.

A district official said that at least 15 police officers also sustained injuries in the fighting and that reinforcements were sent to secure the area.

The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the coordinated attacks on its website.

A couple of days earlier, the Taliban militants launched attacks on parts of the central-eastern Afghan city of Ghazni, driving a Humvee packed with explosives into the entrance of a district governor’s compound in the assaults.

The latest development comes just a month after the Taliban killed at least 135 security forces in northern Balkh Province, in the deadliest raid on an Afghan military base.

In late April, the militant group announced the start of its so-called spring offensive, a heightened campaign of bombings, ambush attacks, and other raids across Afghanistan that begins as weather conditions improve.

Over 1,000 members of Afghan security forces as well as over 700 civilians have so far been killed this year, according to Afghan authorities and figures cited by the US-based Congressional watchdog Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).