AFGHANISTAN, August 10: Taliban fighters tried to overrun a provincial capital in Afghanistan early on Friday, hiding inside homes before slipping into city streets in the night to attack security forces and killing at least 14 policemen before being pushed back, officials said.

The overnight attack in the southeastern city of Ghazni, the capital of a province with the same name, also wounded at least 20 members of the security forces, said Baz Mohammad Hemat, the administrator of the Ghazni city hospital.

Another Taliban attack, this one on Thursday night in western Herat province, left six policemen dead in the district of Obe, according to the governor’s spokesman there, Gelani Farhad.

The brazen assaults by the Taliban, who have been gaining more ground in their annual spring offensive and who have shrugged off the government’s latest offers of a cease-fire and negotiations, underscore the difficulties Afghan forces face in battling the relentless insurgency on their own in efforts to end the nearly 17-year war.

In Ghazni, the attack began around 2 a.m. with intense gunbattles raging and fires burning in several shops in the city’s residential areas, provincial police chief Farid Ahmad Mashal told The Associated Press.

After repulsing the daring assault, police conducted house-to-house searches for any remaining Taliban fighters. An investigation was also underway on how the insurgents had managed to infiltrate so deep into the city, barely 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Hemat, the hospital administrator, said two wounded civilians were also brought to the hospital but that the city was shut down and that ambulances were not being sent out.

Mashal said there were more than 100 other casualties but he could not give a breakdown of the dead and wounded. Most of the casualties were Taliban, he said.

Several bodies of dead Taliban fighters remained on the street after government forced pushed the insurgents from Ghazni, the police chief said. Bodies of 39 Taliban fighters were recovered from under a bridge on the southern edge of the city.

Airstrikes called in to quash the offensive also killed dozens of Taliban, Mashal said. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said the army had helped the police and that the city was brought under control of government forces.

Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said American forces and U.S. attack helicopters assisted Afghan troops in pushing back the Taliban during the night’s multiple attacks in Ghazni.

“U.S. forces responded with close-air support and conducted one drone strike,” O’Donnell said.

By midday Friday, O’Donnell said that fighting was continuing inside Ghazni, prompting the U.S. forces to return American attack helicopters and fighter jets to the area soon after they were initially pulled back.

“It is a show of presence,” he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed parts of Ghazni had been seized and scores of people killed.

After dawn Friday, Ghazni’s residents were staying indoors and all shops in the city remained closed. The road from Kabul to Afghanistan’s southern provinces was also closed because it runs through Ghazni.

By mid-morning, sporadic gunfire could still be heard in city, some residents said. There were still Taliban fighters who had hunkered down in elevated positions from which they were still shooting, the residents said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear for their safety.

The Taliban have so far not confirmed being behind the earlier attack in Herat in which at least six policemen were killed at a district checkpoint.

The insurgents have stepped up attacks across the country since NATO and the United States formally ended their combat mission in 2014, and have seized control of several districts. U.S. and NATO forces remain in Afghanistan mainly in a supporting and training role.

Separately from the Taliban, an Islamic State affiliate has also carried out dozens of deadly attacks in recent years, mainly targeting security forces and minority Shiites. AP

A Pakistani teenager nearly killed by Taliban gunmen for advocating that all girls should have the right to go to school gave her first formal public remarks Friday at the United Nations. It also happened to be Malala Yousafzai’s 16th birthday.

“Today, it is an honor for me to be speaking again after a long time,” she said. “Being here with such honorable people is a great moment in my life.”

She looked out at an audience of hundreds of children from around the world and U.N. members, including Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and told them that she was wearing a pink shawl that once belonged to Benazir Bhutto, the two-time prime minister of Pakistan who was killed in 2007 in a suicide attack at a political rally.

“I don’t know where to begin my speech,” she said. “I don’t know what people would be expecting me to say. But first of all, thank you to God for whom we all are equal and thank you to every person who has prayed for my fast recovery and a new life. I cannot believe how much love people have shown me.”

She went on to give a rousing speech, saying that she held no contempt in her heart for the masked gunmen who, on October 9, 2012, jumped on her school bus and shouted her name, scaring other girls into identifying her. The gunmen shot and injured two other girls as well as Yousafzai.

“They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed,” she said. “And then, out of that silence, came thousands of voices.”

Yousafzai said she doesn’t want revenge against the Taliban, who have threatened to hunt her down again and end her life.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Suicide attackers blew up a car bomb and battled security forces outside Afghanistan’s presidential palaceTuesday after infiltrating one of the most secure areas of the capital. The army said the attackers were killed but knew of no other deaths.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as reporters were gathering for a news event on Afghan youth at whichPresident Hamid Karzai was expected to talk about ongoing efforts to open peace talks with the militant group.

The palace is in a large fortified area of downtown Kabul that also includes the U.S. Embassy and the headquarters for the NATO-led coalition forces. Access is heavily restricted. It houses Karzai’s residence but it was not immediately clear whether the president was in the building at the time and his spokesman did not answer his phone.

Gunfire started around 6:30 a.m. inside a heavily guarded area near the east gate leading to the palace next to the Afghan Ministry of Defense and the former Ariana Hotel, which former U.S. intelligence officials have confirmed is used by the CIA.

Kabul police chief Gen. Mohamad Ayub Salangi said three or four gunmen jumped out of their SUV and opened fire after being stopped by security forces while trying to use fake documents to get through a checkpoint. All gunmen were killed, and one palace security guard was wounded, he said.

A car bomb then exploded as it tried to enter the area. About 20 journalists took cover behind a religious shrine, pulling a schoolboy off the street who had been caught in the open on his way to school.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed responsibility, saying in a text message the militants had “brought death to the enemy” with a suicide attack. He later suggested in an emailed statement that all three buildings had been targeted, saying the attack came “near the Ariana Hotel, the important CIA base, and also the presidential palace and Ministry of Defense.”

Smoke could be seen coming from the area of the hotel, but there was no immediate indication any of the buildings were hit in the attack.

Mujahid claimed the attackers had inflicted “heavy casualties,” but Afghanistan’s Kabul division army commander Gen. Kadam Shah Shahim said he knew of no deaths among security forces or civilians.

He said his forces killed all of the attackers after they jumped out of their vehicle and opened fire.

The NATO-led coalition in Afghanistan instituted a camp lockdown during the incident and said in a short statement that its forces had been ready to assist but were not called in by Afghan authorities.

The U.S. Embassy cancelled all consular appointments and advised American citizens in Kabul to stay indoors but had no immediate comment on the incident.

The Taliban have indicated they are willing to open peace talks with the U.S. and the Afghanistan government and just last week opened an office in Qatar for possible negotiations.

But at the same time they have not renounced violence and attacks have continued across Afghanistan.

NATO said a coalition service member also died in a militant attack in the south on Saturday, but did not provide further details.

The violence follows NATO’s formal handover of security in the entirety of Afghanistan to Kabul’s forces — a transition that comes at a time with violence levels matching their worst in nearly 12 years of war.

In northern Afghanistan, Kunduz provincial police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini said Saturday that the Taliban attacked multiple checkpoints at about noon Friday in the provincial capital of the same name, killing one member of the Afghan local police, a community-based force, and wounding two.

The Taliban then moved outside the city where a gun battle with Afghan security forces lasted until about midnight, Hussaini said.

Eighteen Taliban fighters and another local policeman were killed in the battle, and another 11 militants were wounded, he said. Hussaini posted on his Facebook page a picture of 11 bodies lined up inside theprovincial police compound in Kunduz that he said were those of Taliban militants his troops recovered from the scene of the fight.

The Interior Ministry said the battle outside of the city involved Afghan National Police, and that it was conducted independently “without the involvement of any foreigners.”

As Afghan forces have become more involved in security operations they have seen a sharp rise in deaths, while casualties among the U.S.-led military coalition have been reducing as the international forces pull back to let the Afghans take the lead.

According to an Associated Press count, 807 Afghan security force members — including soldiers and police — and 365 civilians have been killed so far this year through the end of May. A total of 63 coalition troops were also killed in that span.

Last year through the end of May, Afghan security forces lost 365 soldiers and police and 338 civilians were killed. Coalition forces lost 177 troops during that time.

 Afghanistan: The Taliban claimed responsibility Wednesday for an attack in Afghanistan that killed four American troops just hours after the insurgent group announced it would hold talks with the U.S. on finding a political solution to ending the nearly 12-year war in the country.

The deadly attack underscores the challenges ahead in trying to end the violence roiling Afghanistan through peace negotiations in Qatar with militants still fighting on the ground.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the insurgents fired two rockets into the Bagram Air Base outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, late on Tuesday. American officials confirmed the base had come under attack by indirect fire — likely a mortar or rocket — and that four U.S. troops were killed.

Also Tuesday, five Afghan police officers were killed at a security outpost in Helmand province by apparent Taliban infiltrators — the latest in a string of so-called “insider attacks” that have shaken the confidence of the nascent Afghan security forces.

The attacks came as the Taliban opened a political office in the Qatari capital of Doha, and announced they were ready for peace talks. The decision was a reversal of months of failed efforts to start negotiations while Taliban militants intensified a campaign targeting urban centers and government installations across Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama cautioned that the peace talks with the Taliban would be neither quick nor easy but that their opening a political office in Doha was an “important first step toward reconciliation” between the Islamic militants and the government of Afghanistan.

In setting up the office, the Taliban said they were willing to use all legal means to end what they called the occupation of Afghanistan — but did not say they would immediately stop fighting.

American officials said the U.S. and Taliban representatives will hold bilateral meetings in the coming days. Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s High Peace Council is expected to follow up with its own talks with the Taliban a few days later.

The Taliban announcement followed a milestone handover in Afghanistan earlier Tuesday as Afghan forces formally took the lead from the U.S.-led NATO coalition for security nationwide. It marked a turning point for American and NATO military forces, which will now move entirely into a supporting role.

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan: The Pakistani Taliban’s deputy leader was buried hours after he was killed in a U.S. drone strike, Pakistani intelligence officials and militants said Thursday.

The death of Waliur Rehman has not been confirmed by the White House or the official Pakistani Taliban spokesman, but if true, it would be a major blow to the militant group whose bombings and other attacks have killed thousands.

Rehman’s killing in a U.S. drone strike on Wednesday could also rattle the incoming Pakistani ruling party’s goal of negotiating with the Taliban. Rehman had previously been considered more amenable to peace talks than his superior, Hakeemullah Mehsud, who remains at large.

Rehman and four other people were killed on Wednesday morning by the drone-fired missiles that slammed into a house on the outskirts of Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Two intelligence officials told The Associated Press on Thursday that informants on the ground told them Rehman was buried on Wednesday night. Also, two militants told the AP they attended the funeral. All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Journalists have little access to North Waziristan or other tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, making independent confirmation of the claims difficult.

The missile attack was the first since Pakistan’s May 11 elections, which ushered in a new ruling party that has promised to push the U.S. to end such strikes. It also followed President Barack Obama’s speech last Thursday during which he pledged more restrictive rules on the use of drones.

White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to confirm Wednesday if Rehman was dead. He said if it’s true, Rehman’s death would deprive the militant group of its chief military strategist, a man the U.S. says was involved in an attack that killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan.

In 2010, Washington offered $5 million for information leading to Rehman.

The U.S. drone program is deeply unpopular in Pakistan, even though the number of strikes has dropped significantly since 2010. The strikes usually target al-Qaida-linked insurgents or other militants who fight in Afghanistan, but some have killed militants at war with Pakistan’s government.

The Pakistani Taliban has been battling government forces for years in a bid to push them from the tribal regions, cut Pakistan’s ties with the U.S. and eventually establish their brand of hardline Islam across Pakistan.

Pakistan’s incoming prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, has said he is against the use of American drones on Pakistani soil, and that he is open to negotiating with the Pakistani Taliban. But Rehman’s death could complicate that by depriving the process of a potential key player.

Rehman was believed to be about 42 or 43 years old and was from South Waziristan, said Mansur Mahsud, director of administration and research at the Islamabad-based FATA Research Center. He had already been fighting American troops in Afghanistan when the Pakistani Taliban was created in late 2007 and he turned his focus more onto Pakistani targets.

“He was a very cool-minded person, a very intelligent person and he was someone that the government could talk to,” Mahsud said.

The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the drone strike Wednesday but did not mention Rehman. Senior Pakistani civilian and military officials are known to have supported some of the drone strikes in the past, but many say that is no longer the case.

In the south, three U.S. service members, two U.S. civilians and the doctor were killed when a suicide bomber detonated a car full of explosives just as a convoy with the international military coalition drove past another convoy of vehicles carrying the governor of Zabul province.

Another American civilian was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said in a statement.

The attacks occurred the same day that U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Afghanistan for a visit aimed at assessing the level of training that American troops can provide to Afghan security forces after international combat forces complete their withdrawal at the end of 2014.

Those killed in Zabul province included three members of the military and two U.S. civilians, including at least one employee with the U.S. State Department, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of a formal announcement. Several other Americans and Afghans, possibly as many as nine, were wounded, the official said.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul confirmed that Americans were involved in an attack in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province. Zabul is next to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban, and shares a volatile border with Pakistan.

“There are American and Afghan casualties. We are still investigating the incident and cannot confirm details at this time,” the embassy said in a statement.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attacks.

The deaths bring the number of foreign military forces killed this year to 30, including 22 Americans. A total of six foreign civilians have died in Afghanistan so far this year, according to an Associated Press count.

It was unclear if the car bomber was targeting the coalition convoy or that of Provincial Gov.Mohammad Ashraf Nasery, who was driving to an event at a nearby school in Qalat. The explosion occurred in front of a hospital.

Nasery, who survived the attack, said the car bomb exploded as his convoy was passing the hospital. He said a doctor was killed, and two of his bodyguards and a student from the school were wounded. The coalition convoy was leaving a base that is home to a provincial reconstruction team, or PRT, officials said.

“The governor’s convoy was at the gate of the school,” provincial police chief Gen. Ghulam Sakhi Rooghlawanay said. “At the same time the (coalition) convoy came out from the PRT and was passing by that place. The suicide bomber blew himself up between the two convoys.”

Nasery said he thought his convoy was the intended target.

“I’m safe and healthy,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone call. “The target was my vehicle, but I survived.”

KABUL, Afghanistan: Insurgents wearing Afghan army uniforms launched a suicide attack and stormed a courthouseWednesday in a failed bid to free Taliban inmates, killing at least 44 people, half of them shot in the basement. Nine attackers were killed.

The attack — one of the deadliest in the more than 11-year-old war — began about 8:30 a.m. when nine men wearing suicide vests drove into the capital of Farah province in western Afghanistan, evading checkpoints by using army vehicles, according to the provincial police chief. The standoff ended some eight hours later when the last gunman was killed.

Insurgents have stepped up assaults targeting the Farah provincial government in recent months as they vie for control of an area bordering Iran to the west and Helmand province to the east. Farah has become increasingly volatile as the site of a growing drug trade after military offensives in neighboring areas.

“The Taliban seem to be exploiting the opium harvest and the unpopular eradication efforts by the government to further establish their presence,” Fabrizio Foschini, of the independent research groupAfghan Analysts Network, said in a recent blog.

Militants have staged high-profile complex attacks across Afghanistan in a bid to show their strength and undermine confidence in the central government.

Wednesday’s assault was among the most brutal for civilians, raising fears of deteriorating security as international combat forces withdraw by the end of 2014 and hand over control to Afghan security forces.

The attack began when two assailants blew themselves up inside one of the vehicles while the others jumped out and ran toward the courthouse and prosecutor’s office, provincial police chief Agha Noor Kemtoz said. Guards opened fire, killing one of the attackers, as the others engaged in a fierce gunbattle that left civil servants and government officials holed up in their offices.

Other civilians fled to the basement of the courthouse, where gunmen found them and killed 21 people, officials said.

Kemtoz said the attack aimed to free more than a dozen Taliban prisoners who were being transferred to the courthouse for trial, which had not yet started.

“Definitely the plan was to free the prisoners with this attack, but thank God, they did not succeed,” he said. “All the prisoners are accounted for.”

Deputy provincial governor Yonus Rasouli, however, said one of the inmates had escaped. He said the suspects had been arrested in different places and faced a range of charges, including planting roadside bombs.

Provincial Gov. Akram Akhpewak said those killed included 34 civilians, including judges and prosecutors, 10 members of the security forces and the nine attackers. Dr. Abdul Hakim Rasouli, chief of the Farah hospital, said 80 people also were wounded.

Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message sent to reporters, although some witnesses questioned whether the assailants were Afghans.

Provincial lawmaker Humaira Ayobi said a recent police operation targeting the drug trade may have been a factor in the audacious attack.

It was the deadliest strike since Oct. 26, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives outside a mosque packed with senior regional officials in the northern Afghan province of Faryab, killing 41 people on a major Muslim holiday.

In Kabul, meanwhile, Afghanistan’s intelligence chief Asadullah Khalid returned to Kabul on Wednesday nearly four months after he was seriously wounded by a Taliban suicide bomber posing as a messenger of peace.

Billboards in the capital welcomed home the director of the National Directorate of Security, saying he has fully recovered and “is ready to continue his duty to provide peace, security and prosperity to his homeland.”

Javed Khan, a local administrator in the Kurram tribal area, says another soldier was wounded by the explosion near an army vehicle in Dogar village on Monday.

No one has claimed responsibility. The Pakistani Taliban often attack soldiers deployed in the tribal region to fight local militants and their foreign allies. The Pakistani Taliban have waged a bloody insurgency in the country in recent years that has killed thousands of soldiers.

KABUL: About 20 people were killed in two suicide bombings in Afghanistan Saturday. A Taliban spokesman said the attacks were a message for Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, who is in Afghanistan for his first official visit.

Militants staged two deadly suicide attacks Saturday to mark the first full day of US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s visit toAfghanistan, a fresh reminder that insurgents continue to fight and challenges remain as the US-led NATO force hands over the country’s security to the Afghans.

A suicide bomber on a bicycle struck outside the Afghan Defense Ministry early Saturday morning, and about a half hour later, another suicide bomber attacked a police checkpoint in Khost city, the capital of Khost province in eastern Afghanistan.

Nine people were killed in the bombing at the ministry, and an Afghan policeman and eight civilians, who were mostly children, died in the blast in Khost, said provincial spokesman Baryalai Wakman.

“This attack was a message to him,” Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said of Hagel, in an email to reporters about the defense ministry attack.

Hagel was nowhere near the blasts, but heard them across the city. He told reporters traveling with him that he wasn’t sure what it was when he heard the explosion.

“We’re in a war zone. I’ve been in war, so shouldn’t be surprised when a bomb goes off or there’s an explosion,” said Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran.

Asked what his message to the Taliban would be, he said that the US was going to continue to work with its allies to insure that the Afghan people have the ability to develop their own country and democracy.

Hagel’s first visit to Kabul as Pentagon chief comes as the US and Afghanistan grapple with a number of disputes, from the aborted handover of a main detention facility — canceled at the last moment late Friday as a deal for the transfer broke down — to Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s demand that US special operations forces withdraw from Wardak province just outside Kabul over allegations of abuse.

The prison transfer, originally slated for 2009, has been repeatedly delayed because of disputes between the US and Afghan governments about whether all detainees should have the right to a trial and who will have the ultimate authority over the release of prisoners the US considers a threat.

The Afghan government has maintained that it needs full control over which prisoners are released as a matter of national sovereignty. The issue has threatened to undermine ongoing negotiations for a bilateral security agreement that would govern the presence of US forces in Afghanistan after the current combat mission ends in 2014.

US military officials said Saturday’s transfer ceremony was canceled because they could not finalize the agreement with the Afghans, but did not provide details. Afghan officials were less forthcoming.

“The ceremony is not happening today,” Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimisaid, without elaborating.

Regarding Wardak, Karzai set a deadline for Monday for the pullout of the US commandos, over allegations that joint US and Afghan patrols engaged in a pattern of torture, kidnappings and summary executions.

“Each of those accusations has been answered and we’re not involved,” said Brigadier Adam Findlay, NATO’s deputy chief of staff of operations. “There are obviously atrocities occurring there, but it’s not linked to us, and the kind of atrocities we are seeing, fingers cut off, other mutilations to bodies, is just not the way we work.”

Findlay said NATO officials have made provisional plans to withdraw special operations forces, if Karzai sticks to his edict after meetings this weekend with Hagel and top military commander in Afghanistan Gen. Joseph Dunford.

“What we’ve got to try to do is go to a middle ground that meets the president’s frustration,” but also keeps insurgents from using Wardak as a staging ground to launch attacks on the capital, Findlay said. “That plan would be that you would put in your more conventional forces into Wardak,” to replace the special operators and maintain security, he said.

NATO officials see the weekend violence as part of the Taliban’s coming campaign for the spring fighting season. “There’s a series of attacks that have started as the snow is thawing. We had a potential insider attack yesterday … and there’s been a number of attacks on the border,” Findlay explained.