Both the Taliban and government forces exaggerate their claims of casualties

News Desk

Kandahar: Afghan government forces struggled against Taliban assaults on several major cities Sunday as the insurgents stepped up a nationwide offensive that saw a key airport in the south come under rocket fire overnight.

After seizing large tracts of rural territory and capturing key border crossings, the Taliban has now started to besiege provincial capitals.

“Fighting is going on inside the city and we have asked for Special Forces to be deployed in the city,” Ataullah Afghan, head of Helmand provincial council, told agencies.

Afghan security forces have increasingly relied on air strikes to push the militants back from cities even as they run the risk of hitting civilians in heavily populated areas.

“The city is in the worst condition. I do not know what will happen,” said Halim Karimi, a resident of Lashkar Gah.

“Neither the Taliban will have mercy on us, nor will the government will stop bombing.”

Further west in the city of Herat, fighting continued on the city’s outskirts overnight with air strikes on Taliban positions.

Herat provincial governor’s spokesman Jailani Farhad said that around 100 Taliban fighters had been killed in the attacks.

Both the Taliban and government forces exaggerate their claims of casualties inflicted on each other’s forces and true counts are difficult to independently verify.