MAZAR SHARIF: Taliban fighters overran an army base in northern Afghanistan, officials said on Tuesday, killing at least 17 soldiers with dozens feared captured in a stinging blow to security forces already struggling to push insurgents from eastern Ghazni.

The fall of the base in Ghormach district of volatile Faryab province came with security forces — who have struggled to hold back the Taliban since Nato combat troops pulled out in 2014 — already stretched by the days of fighting in Ghazni, a strategic provincial capital two hours from Kabul.

Militants gained control of the base after days of heavy fighting, according to army spokesman for northern Afghanistan Mohammad Hanif Rezaee.

Security forces struggling to push insurgents out of Ghazni

He said around 100 soldiers were on the base when it was first attacked on Sunday.

“It is a tragedy that the base fell to the enemy. Some soldiers were killed, some captured and some fled to nearby hills,” Rezaee told AFP.

At least 17 were killed in the attack, according to defence ministry spokesman Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed, while a local MP said Taliban fighters captured another 40 in the base, known as Chenaya.

“Preparations are under way to launch an operation to recapture the base,” said the ministry’s spokesman.

Tahir Rehmani — head of Faryab’s provincial council — said the base fell after the soldiers begged for reinforcements and air support from Kabul but were ultimately ignored.

“They were too busy with Ghazni,” said Rehmani.

Ghazni, further east and which the Taliban first assaulted late Thursday, remains in government hands, officials have said. But fears of civilian casualties in the city were growing as Afghan security forces backed by US air power struggled to push the Taliban out five days after the assault began.

A spokesman for US Forces in Afgha­nistan, Lt Col Martin O’Donnell, said there had been “no reported enemy activity” so far Tuesday, though he added that “some Taliban forces remain in the city”.

With reports of fighters hiding among the civilian population, O’Donnell said residents had been “terrorised and harassed”.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2018