Taliban forces have launched a new offensive, besieging the districts of Jaghori and Malistan with up to 1,000 fighters against around 250 police and militia. Hundreds of people are thought to have been killed, with thousands forced to flee their homes. The insurgents captured checkpoints throughout the area in a days long ongoing attack before Afghan Special Forces were sent in supported by airstrikes. The hardest hit area was around Hotqol, where 8 checkpoints were seized and at least 50 police and militia and a further 30 Afghan commandos were killed.
The attacked districts are considered gateways to relatively peaceful, fiercely anti-Taliban Hazara controlled provinces of Bamiyan and Dai Kundi. Much of Ghazni province, a strategic location along the main highway connection Kabul and Kandahar, is already under Taliban control.
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During a 24 hour period 9 attacks were launched by the Taliban on security forces throughout Afghanistan killing at least 59 with many more wounded or missing, though the number is unclear. In Farah Province, Afghan Border Force headquarters was overrun after an hours long gun battle, with up to 20 killed and a further 25 taken prisoner. In Kandahar, three attacks killed 17 more officers. In Ghazni, a new joint military and police outpost was overrun when all 16 occupants were killed or wounded. In four smaller attacks, 9 more security forces were killed in Zabul, Faryab, Sar-i-Pul and Badghis. The attackers reportedly seized armored vehicles, trucks, weapons and ammunition.
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A group of armed militants kidnapped at least 79 students and 3 staff members from a school in the village of Nkwen in Cameroon. A video thought to show the students was later released by a group calling themselves the “Amba boys”. Ambazonia is a self-declared state in the western Anglophone region where separatists seek independence. Violence has escalated recently since the government started cracking down on protests. The demonstrators claim that as primarily English-speakers, they are marginalized by the french speaking government. Armed separatists have torched at least 100 schools, abducting children and staff and turning the schools into training grounds.
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