KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban insurgents launched separate attacks on Afghan security forces in the country's north, killing at least 52 people, provincial officials said Monday.
The insurgents carried out simultaneous assaults on six outposts in the strategic Dasht-e-Archi district of Kunduz province just after midnight, killing seven police officers and 13 soldiers, according to Mullah Akhtar Kaker, the local police commander in the district.
Other officials confirmed the violence in Kunduz province with slightly different casualty figures. The district governor, Nasruddin Saadi, put the death toll at 19, with an additional 22 officers and soldiers wounded.
Mohammad Yusouf Ayubi, head of the provincial council in Kunduz province, said that at least 13 security forces were killed and 15 others wounded in an attack on a checkpoint they were manning. The firefight began late Sunday and continued into Monday morning.
Meanwhile in Jawzjan province, Provincial Police Chief Gen. Faqir Mohammad Jawzjani said the Taliban attacked Khamyab district from different sides, forcing Afghan forces to withdraw from the district headquarters to avoid civilian causalities.
"There was intense fighting and we didn't want civilian houses destroyed, or any civilian casualties," said Jawzjani. He said that at least eight policemen were killed and three other police were wounded. Seven Taliban were killed and eight were wounded during the gunbattle, he added.
"Ninety police officers and soldiers are surrounded by the Taliban," said Babur Ishchi, head of the provincial council. "They have not received any support yet."
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the group for the attacks in Kunduz and Jawzjan provinces.
The Taliban also killed another 14 local Afghan policemen and pro-government militiamen in the Dara Suf district of Samangan province, provincial spokesman Sediq Azizi said, adding that six others were also wounded.
Azizi said three Taliban fighters were killed and four others wounded during the Monday morning battle.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack in Samangan, but Azizi blamed Taliban insurgents that are active in the province and often target Afghan security forces and local, pro-government militias.
Meanwhile in the northern Sari Pul province, the provincial governor, Zahir Wahdat, said the Taliban killed at least 17 Afghan security forces and wounded three others in attacks across the province.
The Afghan air force arrived Monday morning, Wahdat said.
"They carried out airstrikes on Taliban positions," Wahdat said. "Thirty-nine Taliban fighters were killed, and 14 others were wounded in Afghan airstrikes and the battle."
Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizai, the provincial police chief, said at least two security forces were killed in the battles.
"The Taliban's attack has been repelled, but sporadic gunbattles are underway at the outskirts of the city," Baqizai added.
The Taliban haven't yet commented on the fighting in Sari Pul province.
Khamyab became the latest of more than 20 of Afghanistan's 407 government districts to fall to insurgent control. Forty or more other districts are listed by the U.S. military as "insurgent influenced," and many others as contested.
On Sunday, 40 members of the Afghan security forces were killed in the northern province of Baghlan when Taliban fighters overran a military base. That same day, seven people in the capital, Kabul, were killed as a suicide bomber attacked a commemoration. And in Wardak and Herat provinces, an additional 19 police officers and soldiers were killed in two assaults.
The military base captured by the Taliban on Sunday was the second major base to fall to the insurgents in Baghlan province in the past month and the third in northern Afghanistan during the same period.
Since a June cease-fire that marked the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, Taliban insurgents have ramped up attacks against Afghanistan's security forces, killing hundreds of security personnel in increasingly well-coordinated assaults across the country.
Information for this article was contributed by Rahim Faiez, Amir Shah and Kathy Gannon of The Associated Press; and by Najim Rahim and Fahim Abed of The New York Times.
A Section on 09/11/2018