43 soldiers killed in Taliban attack on army camp in Afghanistan’s Kandahar

The Taliban claimed the attack in a media statement. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Taliban ambush in the northern Balkh province late Wednesday killed six police, according to Shir Jan Durani, spokesman for the provincial police chief.

Afghan security personnel walk at the site of a suicide attack at a police training centre in Gardez, capital of Paktia province, on October 17, 2017. The death toll in an ongoing suicide and gun attack on a police training centre in a southeast Afghan city has risen to 32 with more than 200 wounded, a hospital official said October 17. "The hospital is overwhelmed and we call on people to donate blood," said Shir Mohammad Karimi, deputy health director in Gardez. / AFP PHOTO / FARID ZAHIR

KABUL: The Taliban have killed at least 43 Afghan soldiers in an attack that wiped out an army camp in the southern Kandahar province, the Defence Ministry said on Thursday. Spokesman Dawlat Wazir said the attack yesterday involved two suicide car bombs and set off hours of fighting. He says nine other soldiers were wounded and six have gone missing. He said 10 attackers were killed. The Taliban claimed the attack in a media statement. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Taliban ambush in the northern Balkh province late Wednesday killed six police, according to Shir Jan Durani, spokesman for the provincial police chief. Afghan forces have struggled to combat a resurgent Taliban since US and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a counterterrorism and support role. The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country's south, east and west, and killing at least 74 people, officials said. Among those killed in one of the attacks was a provincial police chief. Scores were also wounded, both policemen and civilians. Afghanistan's deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called Tuesday's onslaught the "biggest terrorist attack this year."