Three Taliban Attacks on Police in Afghanistan

On October 17^th, the Taliban claimed responsibility for three attacks on police and government compounds in three separate provinces in Afghanistan.

In the Paktia province, the Taliban targeted a police compound with two car bombs. After the explosions, suicide bombers stormed the police compound. The compound contained the provincial headquarters of the national police, border police, and the Afghan National Army.

The Afghan security forces battled the Taliban for several hours, killing 5 Taliban fighters who stormed the compound. The Taliban killed 21 policemen and 20 civilians, while 48 policemen and 110 civilians were wounded.

Another attack occurred in Ghazni province, where the Taliban set off a car bomb and then stormed a security compound. Attackers killed 25 policemen and 5 civilians and 15 people were wounded, including 10 policemen.

In western Farah province, the Taliban attacked a government compound in Shibkho district, killing three policemen.

The Taliban has targeted police before, most recently in June, it targeted a police headquarters in the Paktia province, killing 6 policemen. The Taliban has been attempting to impose Sharia law in Afghanistan and Pakistan since it formed in the 1990s.

On October 16^th, the U.S. used drone missiles to attack Taliban’s Haqqani network on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Pakistan’s Kurram district, killing 20 terrorists and civilians.  The U.S. dropped four more drone missiles in the same district on the 17^th, killing 26 more people.

The four-nation Quadrilateral Coordination Group (QGC), which includes Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and the United States met on October 16^th to try to revive peace talks with the Taliban. Attempts at peace talks have failed in the past because the Taliban refused to attend talks after its leader, Mullah Akhtar Mansur, was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan last year.

The U.S. has now carried out 5 strikes in Pakistan this year, while over 2,000 strikes have occurred in Afghanistan. In August, President Trump announced his Afghanistan war strategy, which didn’t give many details. Part of the plan is to deploy more American troops to Afghanistan to continue to train Afghan forces there. The U.S. will also increase pressure on Pakistan which it accuses of harboring Taliban commanders, to crack down on terrorist sanctuaries on its border.