Taliban launches 'massive attack' on Afghan city of Kunduz

The Taliban launched a large-scale attack on Kunduz, one of Afghanistan's main cities, killing at least three civilians and wounding more than 70 others, government officials said Saturday, even as the insurgent group continued negotiations with the United States on ending America's longest war.

The militants, who have demanded that all foreign forces leave Afghanistan, now control or hold sway over roughly half of the country and are at their strongest since their 2001 defeat by a U.S.-led invasion. Such attacks are seen as strengthening their negotiating position.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives at the main intersection in Kunduz after hours of efforts by Afghan security forces to push the militants into the city's outskirts, provincial council member Ghulam Rabani Rabani told The Associated Press. He confirmed there were casualties in the attack that occurred as the police chief and others were at the scene.

The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Afghan officials confirmed casualties among security forces in the day of fighting but did not say how many and said at least 60 Taliban fighters had been killed. As night fell, they said gun battles continued on the outskirts of Kunduz, a strategic crossroads with easy access to much of northern Afghanistan as well as the capital, Kabul, about 335 kilometres away.

Presidential spokesperson Sediq Seddiqi told reporters the attack was "completely against the peace talks."

The bodies of at least three civilians and two members of the security forces were taken to the Kunduz hospital and dozens of wounded civilians of all ages had been treated, including women and children, said the provincial health director, Esanullah Fazeli. At least nine of them were wounded in the suicide attack, he said.

Rabani said the insurgents briefly took control of the hospital earlier in the day, but Fazeli said the fighters left after staffers told them the patients could be hurt in any crossfire.

"In a way we are thankful that the Taliban accepted what they were told," he said.

The Taliban launched the "massive attack" from several different points overnight, said Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, spokesman for the provincial police chief, who reported "intense gun battles" around the city.

Hours later, the Afghan defence minister, Asadullah Khalid, rejected speculation that Kunduz had collapsed. Security reinforcements had arrived in the morning from Kabul and repelled Taliban fighters from the city, he told the local TOLO news channel.

Officials with the NATO mission in Afghanistan did not immediately respond to a question about whether its forces were responding to the attack.

The Taliban have continued bloody assaults on civilians and security forces even as their leaders meet with U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Qatar to negotiate an end to nearly 18 years of war.

Talks continued Saturday, a Taliban spokesperson said. Both sides in recent days have signalled they are close to a deal. The Afghan presidential spokesperson said Khalilzad will visit Kabul at some point to brief the government on the details.

Attacks cast doubt on securing ceasefire

One Afghan analyst, former deputy interior minister Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, said the attack on Kunduz showed the Taliban are not interested in a ceasefire, which has been a key issue in the Qatar talks.

The United States in the negotiations has also sought Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will no longer be a launching pad for terror attacks such as the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the U.S. by al-Qaeda. The Taliban government had harboured al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Some 20,000 U.S. and NATO forces remain in Afghanistan after formally ending their combat role in 2014. They continue to train and support Afghan forces fighting the Taliban and a local affiliate of the Islamic State group.

Many Afghans worry that an abrupt departure of foreign troops will leave Afghan forces vulnerable and further embolden the Taliban, who already portray a U.S. withdrawal as their victory.

"We have lost the city in the past and know the Taliban can attack again from insecure areas," a legislator from Kunduz, Fatima Azizi, told the local Ariana television channel on Saturday.

"Unfortunately, civilians are again the victims," she said.

The Taliban seized Kunduz, at the heart of a major agricultural region near Tajikistan, for around two weeks in 2015 before withdrawing in the face of a NATO-backed Afghan offensive. The insurgents pushed back into the city centre a year later, briefly raising their flag before gradually being driven out again.