Armed men opened fire on Tuesday on worshipers in a mosque north of Kabul, killing at least seven people and wounding 12, police sources said. The attack took place in the village of Khelalzai, in the province of Parwan.
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"Seven people were killed and 12 injured when gunmen attacked a mosque during evening prayers," provincial police chief Haroon Mubarez told AFP. The attackers fled, he added.
Eight Afghan soldiers were also killed while trying to repel an incursion of Taliban fighters in Kunduz, a strategic city in the north of the country, which the Islamist insurgents held briefly in the past.
Afghanistan is experiencing a resurgence of violence, despite an agreement in late February between the Taliban and the United States providing for the departure of all foreign troops from the country by the summer of 2021.
The government ordered the security forces to "resume their operations (offensive, editor's note) against the enemy", paused since the US-Taliban agreement in Doha, after the attack on a maternity hospital in Kabul last week which left 24 dead.
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Government officials have reported 3,800 Taliban attacks since March, which have left more than 1,300 dead and injured.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (MANUA), in a report released on Tuesday, accused the Taliban and the Afghan security forces of being responsible for the increase in civilian casualties. It identified 208 civilians killed in April by the Taliban, a figure up 25% from April 2019.
The civilian casualties inflicted by the security forces on the population increased by 38% over a year, with 172 deaths in April, according to Manua.
