Despite international calls for permanent ceasefire and the measures to completely withdraw the foreign troops from Afghanistan, this May, at least 624 people including 302 civilians and 322 security forces, have been killed in a number of bomb blasts, targeted killings and violent encounters.
TOLO News reported that Baghlan, Laghman and Maidan Wardak, among other provinces, have been worst affected in the fighting. The Afghan government too has claimed to have inflicted massive casualties on the insurgent Taliban.
The fighting in Afghanistan is continuing unabated with frequent bomb blasts worsening the plight of civilians. On June 1, three blasts rocked Kabul city – two of them exploded in western Kabul killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens others.
A day before this incident, four personnel of Afghan government personnel were killed in a car bomb attack allegedly by the Taliban in Baghlan-e-Markazi located in the north of Baghlan province on May 31.
The minority Shia Hazara groups and students have come under attack. On May 8, an explosion in west Kabul’s Dasht-e-Barchi area killed over 60 people, a majority of them girls who were studying at the Sayed ul-Shuhada school in the national capital.
According to official estimates, in the past three weeks, as many as 700 attacks were carried out in Helmand’s Lashkargah.
The protracted war in Afghanistan has caused tremendous socio-economical and political problems in the country. The presence of the US and NATO-supported Afghan government-led military operations has only worsened the plight of civilians.
This is despite the government in Kabul taking initiatives to resume the stalled peace talks in Doha and to form a Supreme State Council to lead the peace process. Seemingly, most of these measures have failed to yield any sustainable ceasefire with the resuming of the intra-Afghan peace talks.
