- As Taliban kill 12 Afghan police with silenced weapons
At least 160 people have died in around three months of clashes between the military and ethnic armed groups in Myanmar`s northern state of Shan, a senior Army official said Tuesday, threatening peace talks set for next month.
More than 20,000 people have been displaced since fighting between the Army and several armed ethnic groups erupted near the border with China in late November.
Giving the Army`s first comprehensive toll from the fighting, the chief of the general staff said 74 soldiers, 15 police, 13 government militia fighters and 13 civilians have died in the violence.
“We have 45 dead bodies of enemies and arrested four,” General Mya Tun Oo told reporters in the capital, Naypyidaw.
He said hundreds more rebels may have been killed based on pictures of a mass funeral.
The update comes as Myanmar`s government prepares to hold the second round of peace talks aiming to end the decades-long conflicts rumbling across the country`s borderlands.
Days earlier eight armed ethnic groups signed a statement saying they would never agree to the government-backed ceasefire deal, known as the NCA.
In the meantime, Taliban fighters in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Tuesday attacked a checkpoint with silenced weapons and hand grenades killing 12 policemen and stealing weapons and ammunition.
However, a provincial official said that it could be an insider attack as one of the guards was still missing.
“An investigation is ongoing to find out if someone from inside has defected to the Taliban and paved the way for this crime,’’ he said.
The attack, in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah, underlined the threat facing Afghan security forces in the opium-producing province, where they struggle to match well-equipped Taliban fighters who now control several districts.
Helmand deputy police chief Haji Gulai told newsmen that the police killed in the attack had been pulled back from the southern district of Khanshin district which security forces abandoned in 2016.
“The Taliban attacked a guard with silenced guns and then entered the check post.
“They attacked other policemen with hand grenades and killed all of them.
“They later took their weapons and ammunition and escaped,’’ he said.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a separate incident, another 12 policemen were killed in the Marjah district of Helmand after an hour-long gun battle.
Taliban fighters now control most of Helmand, including areas in Lashkar Gah.
British and U.S. forces suffered their heaviest casualties of the war in the province in years of fighting following the removal of the Taliban in 2001.
According to U.S. estimates, Afghan security forces now control less than 60 per cent of the country, with the Taliban in control of about 10 per cent and the remainder contested between government and insurgent forces.
Zee News with additional report from NAN
