Taliban launch assault in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province

The Taliban have destroyed a number of bridges and have set up checkpoints in Ghazni province in a bid to gain control over a vital highway linking Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul to the southern areas of the country.

Hawzah News Agency (Kabul, Afghanistan) - The Afghan army is engaged in a operation to contain the militants' Saturday attack. Five militants, who were attempting to destroy three of the highway’s bridges, were killed. The army also deployed helicopters to stall any incursion into the city, according to Ghazni’s governorate spokesman Mohammad Arif Noori.

“We are fully prepared to attack them. This time the province will not fall into the hands of the Taliban,” added Noori.

The Saturday attack comes after the Taliban was pushed back from the area following a bloody five-day assault in August that lead to the partial fall of Ghazni city and deaths of 150 security forces and 95 civilians, along with hundreds of militant fighters, based on official Afghan accounts.

President Ashraf Ghani’s government promised $20 million in relief and reconstruction following the catastrophic assault, which convinced authorities to cancel polling in the province for the country’s upcoming parliamentary elections.

The elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2015 but were postponed till July this year and then till October due to the country’s uncertain security situation in what observers have described as a test for the war-torn country's democratic institutions ahead of the 2019 presidential elections.