The fighting, by the Afghanistan Freedom Front’s account, lasted more than 15 minutes. On the evening of Saturday, November 29, rockets hit Taliban positions around Tapa Television, a neighborhood of Fayzabad, which is the capital of Badakhshan. When it was over, the Front said, three Taliban fighters were dead and two wounded.
The group put out its statement on Sunday, 30 November, according to 8am Media. Etilaatroz, an Afghan news outlet, carried the same claim and placed the target as the Taliban’s seventh district. The Front said its own forces came to no harm.
None of this has been independently confirmed. Local Taliban officials in Badakhshan had not commented on the attack by the time Etilaatroz reported it, and the casualty numbers come only from the Front.
A second attack in Kunduz
That same evening, according to the Front, its fighters also struck a Taliban post along Azadi road in Kunduz city. It claimed two dead and one wounded on the Taliban side, bringing the total it claimed for the night to five dead and three wounded. Again it reported no losses of its own, and again local Taliban officials in Kunduz had no public comment.
Other anti-Taliban groups were active as well. 8am Media noted that the National Resistance Front had earlier claimed responsibility for going after the Taliban’s governor of Khulm district, in Balkh Province.
Etilaatroz pointed out the conditions under which such reports are produced: wide restrictions on media and public space in Afghanistan limit citizens’ access to independent information. In practice that leaves claims like these resting largely on statements from the armed groups themselves, with the Taliban typically silent.
Sources
- Surge in Anti-Taliban Attacks: Afghanistan Freedom Front Claims Killing Three Taliban Fighters in Badakhshan (8am Media)
- "Freedom Front" announces the killing of five Taliban members in Badakhshan and Kunduz (Etilaatroz; English rendering of the Persian original)
Sources
- Surge in Anti-Taliban Attacks: Afghanistan Freedom Front Claims…
- Freedom Front Claims Three Taliban Members Killed in Faizabad…
