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Taliban hold out in northern Afghan city, district in northeast falls

02 October 2015 19:27 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA.Taliban fighters were holding out against Afghan troops in Kunduz on Friday, a day after government forces recaptured most of the northern city that had fallen to the militants in their biggest victory of a 14-year insurgency, APA reports quoting Reuters.

In Jalalabad in the east of the country, a U.S. military transport plane crashed at an airfield just after midnight, killing all 11 people on board, the U.S. military said.

The Taliban said it had shot down the aircraft, but the U.S. military, which still has several thousands troops in Afghanistan after NATO's combat mission ended, said there were no reports of enemy fire and described the crash as an accident.

In Badakhsan province in Afghanistan's northeast, the Taliban took control of Warduj district late on Thursday after heavy fighting, according to Nawid Forotan, a spokesman for the provincial governor.

Residents in Kunduz, a strategic city of 300,000 that fell to the Taliban in a stunning pre-dawn attack on Monday, said that while most Taliban fighters had fled, some were holed up in civilian homes fighting the army.Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Friday they had taken control of Kunduz, a claim denied by the Afghan government."We have beaten up the enemy forces," Mujahid said. The Taliban have been accused of extrajudicial killings, raping, torturing, looting and setting fire to government buildings during their three-day occupation of Kunduz, the Afghan president's office said on Friday.

"Afghanistan is committed to legally prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes, and to that end, assigns a civilian commission to assess the losses sustained as a result of the Taliban presence," a statement said.

At least 60 people have been killed in the fighting as of Friday, according to a Health Ministry spokesman. He said hospitals in Kunduz had treated about 466 wounded.

Ahmad Sahil, a producer for local Afghan television in the city, said many people were still too afraid to leave their houses.

"The Taliban who knew Kunduz left the city already, but many foreign fighters could not flee and are hiding in people's homes in some parts of the city center and are still resisting," Sahil said on Friday.

Hamdullah Danishi, acting governor of Kunduz province, described the capital as calm, and said there was "no major fighting".

He acknowledged, however, that the insurgents had not been completely driven from Kunduz. "Taliban are still in civilian houses and buildings," Danishi said. "They are using civilians as human shields."