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Government forces have launched operations against the Taliban in 18 provinces of Afghanistan as fighting has intensified since the start of the insurgents’ spring offensive this month, the ministry of defense said on Saturday.
The operations, backed by air power and artillery have been concentrated in areas where the Taliban insurgents have been aggressively challenging government forces seeking to reassert control over key districts.
A total of 314 villagers have taken refuge in Si Taung Village (also known as Taung Maw Village) in Buthidaung Township, Arakan State after Burma Army artillery shells fell on their villages.
The refugees are Arakan, Khami, Daingnet, and Chin people from the villages of Nat Ai, Kyaw Lann Chaung, and A Bu.
The Burma Army has threatened renewed military offensives if the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army-North (SSPP/SSA-N) refuses to withdraw from two mountain posts bordering ethnic Wa territory, according to local sources.
A sergeant from the SSA-N told The Irrawaddy on the condition of anonymity that his armed group would not abandon these northern Shan State posts and that they would defend their territory in the event of a strike by government forces.
A faction of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, or TTP, claimed credit for two attacks in Karachi that targeted policemen as they guarded members of a polio vaccination team. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has targeted polio vaccination teams in Pakistan’s major cities in the past.
Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan Jamaat-ul-Ahrar “accepts responsibility for the attack on police in Karachi,” Ihsanullah Ihsan, the official spokesman for the group, said in a statement that was emailed to The Long War Journal.
A group of Taliban insurgents staged a bomb and gun attack in the Afghan capital Kabul Tuesday morning, killing at least 30 people and wounding more than 327, according officials.
The assault targeted a building, which officials say houses a special unit of the Afghan security force working under the Afghan spy agency and responsible for protecting government officials.