At least 10 policemen were killed in clashes with Taliban fighters in the central Afghan province of Wardak, officials said on Sunday, amid fighting to wrest control of arterial highways a day after Taliban fighters blew up bridges.
The Taliban set fire to a government building in Wardak's Sayeed Abad district and killed the district police chief along with nine other policemen on Saturday night, a senior police official said.
Repeated assaults on strategically important provinces, such as Wardak and nearby Ghazni, have been a show of strength for the Taliban, underscoring how volatile security remains in Afghanistan two weeks before nationwide parliamentary elections.
Abdul Rahman Mangal, a spokesman for the Wardak governor's office, said the Taliban raided some civilian houses after killing 10 policemen, destroyed newly built checkpoints and cut power to some parts of the city.
Government forces counter-attacked to stop the insurgents from approaching the city, Mangal said.
A statement from the Taliban's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the insurgents had taken the center of Sayeed Abad and all surrounding security checkpoints, killing numerous members of the security forces and seizing weapons, ammunition and vehicles.
Mohammad Arif Noori, a spokesman for Ghazni's governor, said one soldier was killed by Taliban fighters as they tried to gain control over parts of the province nearly two months after being pushed back from the city by US-backed Afghan forces.
The Taliban attacked Ghazni, a strategically important center straddling the main highway linking Kabul with Afghanistan's south, in August. It was the largest tactical operation launched by the Taliban since they overran the northern city of Kunduz in 2015.
That confrontation killed 150 members of Afghanistan's security forces and 95 civilians, as well as hundreds of Taliban fighters.