At least 22 killed in spate of attacks in Afghanistan

Kabul witnesses its second mosque bombing this month

Men inspect the site of a blast inside a mosque in Kabul on June 12, 2020. Reuters

At least 22 people were killed in a wave of attacks in Afghanistan over the weekend, including four in the second mosque bombing in the capital this month.

Ten police officers were killed on Friday night when Taliban insurgents stormed a checkpoint in western Ghor province.

A local police chief said one policeman was wounded and another was missing after the attack in a remote village in Pasaband district.

The police official said the attack was carried out by Taliban insurgents who have a strong presence in the area, especially in Pasaband.

In the eastern Khost province, gunmen targeting a local warlord killed eight people in the Ali Sher district, said Adel Haider, spokesman for the provincial police chief.

He said one of those killed was the target of the attack — Abdul Wali Ekhlas, a candidate in last year's parliamentary elections who did not win a seat.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for either of the attacks, which followed the bombing of a mosque in Kabul on Friday that killed at least four people including the prayer leader.

It was the second such attack in the capital this month after an imam and a worshipper were killed when a bomb exploded at a mosque near Kabul's Green Zone on June 2.

The Afghan affiliate of ISIS claimed the earlier attack but there was no claim of responsibility for the latest bombing.

The Taliban strongly condemned Friday's attack. "Such systematic killings have begun taking place as the Afghan people have started taking steps towards peace," Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said in a statement.

The latest bloodshed comes as the Taliban and the Afghan government appear to move closer towards potential peace negotiations.

The much delayed talks aimed at ending the conflict are expected to begin once the two sides complete an ongoing prisoner swap, accelerated after a brief ceasefire last month.

The rare truce to mark the Eid Al Fitr holiday has been followed by an overall drop in violence across the country, though authorities have blamed the Taliban for a number of attacks in recent weeks.

"While the government has continued to advance the cause of peace, the Taliban continued their campaign of violence against the Afghan people during Eid and the weeks after that," Javid Faisal, spokesman of the National Security Council tweeted on Saturday.

"In the last two weeks, they killed 89 civilians and wounded 150 across 29 provinces."

The Taliban have largely refrained from launching major attacks on Afghan cities since February, when they signed a deal with the US meant to pave the way for peace talks with the Kabul government.

At the same time the government is battling the local outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. The number of confirmed cases in Afghanistan has passed 20,000 but is believed to be far higher because of the lack of adequate testing.