More than 400 Afghan troops killed, wounded in a week

SANAA, June 15 (YPA) -The Taliban has killed and injured more than 400 Afghan forces in the past week, the Afghan Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

“Last week, the Taliban carried out 222 attacks on Afghan security forces, killing and injuring 422,” interior ministry spokesman Tarek Aryan said, according to Afghan media.

The spokesman also accused the Taliban of targeting religious scholars in an attempt to exert “psychological pressure” on the Afghan government.

Aryan furthermore blamed the Taliban for bomb attacks on two mosques in the capital, Kabul, that killed two imams and four others, and accused its militants of providing “an umbrella to other terrorist networks.”

The Taliban from their side recently announced that they about to start long-delayed peace talks.

The Afghan authorities have announced the release of some 3,000 Taliban prisoners and plan to release another 2,000 as part of these negotiations.

At the end of May, the Taliban released a number of imprisoned Afghan government forces.

The release came as part of the arrangements for a peace agreement signed with the United States, which is considered a prelude to peace negotiations between the Taliban and Kabul.

E.M