Afghan army soldiers have killed more than 100 Taliban militants and wounded several others in a series of clean-up operations carried out across the war-torn country over the past 24 hours.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that 103 militants were killed and 95 others injured in the nationwide operations.
The statement added that as many as 10 militants were also arrested during the offensives, while 17 Afghan troopers also lost their lives in the process.
Violence against Shia Hazaras
In a separate development on Saturday, unidentified armed men fatally shot more than a dozen Shia Muslims from the Hazara ethnic community in Afghanistan’s northern province of Balkh.
Provincial governor’s spokesman, Munir Farhad, said the gunmen dragged 13 Hazara passengers out of two vehicles and shot them to death in Zari district, which lies about 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the provincial capital city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Jafar Haidari, the governor of Zari, said the gunmen were dressed in uniforms of Afghan security forces.
No individual or militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Afghan officials have in the past held Taliban militants and more recently Daesh Takfiris accountable for such incidents.
The Hazara community, which accounts for nearly 22 percent of Afghanistan’s population, is often targeted by militants in the country and neighboring Pakistan.
Afghanistan is still gripped by insecurity nearly 14 years after the United States and its allies attacked the country in 2001 as part of Washington’s so-called war on terror. Although the attack overthrew the Taliban, many areas across Afghanistan still face violence and insecurity.
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