KABUL, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- At least 27 people including eight Taliban militants had been killed in Afghanistan over the 24 hours amid ongoing peace efforts in the conflict-strucken country, officials said Monday.
In the latest fighting against armed opposition groups, the government forces stormed a Taliban hideout in Mardian district of the northern Jawzjan province early on Monday, killing four insurgents and injuring seven others, provincial government spokesman Farid Aneq said.
Aneq has also confirmed the injury of three security personnel in the fighting which lasted for a few hours.
Similarly, the government forces killed eight Taliban fighters and injured two others in Mizan district of the southern Zabul province on Sunday, an army spokesman in the province Ahmad Sadeq Marastyal said.
The government forces in crackdown on militants also targeted a Taliban hideout in Miwand district of the neighboring Kandahar province on Sunday night, killing four insurgents and captured another, the provincial government said in a statement.
Two militants affiliated with the hardlienr Islamic State group were also killed as their hideout came under drone attack in the eastern Nangarhar province on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Taliban fighters targeted security checkpoints in Dara-e-Suf Payan district of northern Samangan province late on Sunday night, triggering gun battle that lasted until Monday morning which left nine pro-government militia dead and injured seven others, head of provincial council Hajji Raz Mohammad told Xinhua.
He also added that the Taliban suffered casualties in the fighting but could not give an exact figure.
The clashes are taking place amid the ongoing peace efforts supported at home and abroad to find a negotiated end to the prolonged fighting in the country.
Governor of northern Kunduz province Abdul Jabbar Naemi in a meeting with religious scholars on Monday urged them to encourage Taliban militants to give up fighting and join the government-backed peace and national reconciliation.
