KABUL, Jan 21: Heavy fighting between the Taliban and security forces in Afghanistan’s remote northwest killed 11 militants while two soldiers died in a Taliban suicide attack on Wednesday, authorities said.

About 300 Taliban attacked a government district centre in Badghis province late Tuesday, sparking hours of fighting, police said.

“There were no casualties to police forces and civilians,” provincial police chief Mohammad Ayoub Niazyar told reporters. “At least 11 Taliban have been killed and 20 wounded,” he said.

But a main Taliban spokesman, Yousuf Ahmadi, said he knew nothing about the fighting, and there was no way to confirm independently what happened.

The Taliban instead claimed a suicide bombing in the city of Herat that the defence ministry said killed two Afghan soldiers heading to work. Another three soldiers were wounded when the attacker rammed a bomb-filled vehicle into an Afghan army convoy, the defence ministry said.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body at a wedding party in the northern town of Baghlan, wounding five children and a police commander, local police said.

The apparent target of the attack was the town police commander who was a guest, provincial chief Abdul Rehman Sayedkhaili said.—AFP