More than 100 Afghan soldiers were killed or wounded in a Taliban attack on an army base on Friday, the defence ministry has confirmed. Fighting lasted for several hours near the city of Mazar-e Sharif in northern Balkh province. Insurgents targeted those leaving Friday prayers at the base’s mosque and others in a canteen, the army said. The Taliban said in a statement they had carried out the attack, using suicide bombers to breach defences. Earlier estimates put the death toll as high as 134, but a statement from the defence ministry on Saturday gave the figure of more than 100 killed or injured. It is one of the deadliest tolls in a Taliban attack on the Afghan army. At least 10 Taliban militants were also killed in the fighting and one attacker was detained.
The Taliban fighters wore army uniforms and drove through military checkpoints before launching the raid, a military spokesman said.
One injured soldier, Mohammad Hussain, said: “When I came out of the mosque, three people with army uniforms and an army vehicle started shooting at us. Of course, they had some infiltrators inside the base, otherwise they would never have been able to enter.
“One of them sitting inside a vehicle had set up a machine gun at the car’s window and shot everyone in his way.”
President Ashraf Ghani flew to the area on Saturday and visited wounded troops.
US military spokesman John Thomas described the attack as a “significant” strike, but he praised Afghan commandos for bringing the “atrocity to an end”.
Source: BBC