Taliban militants on Friday assassinated the Afghan government's top media officer in Kabul, dealing a high-profile blow to the Western-backed administration following battlefield gains by the Islamist group as foreign forces leave.
The killing of Dawa Khan Menapal, head of the Government Media and Information Centre, was the latest in a series aimed at weakening President Ashraf Ghani's democratically elected government.
"He was a young man who stood like a mountain in the face of enemy propaganda, and who was always a major supporter of the regime," said Mirwais Stanikzai, a spokesperson of the interior ministry.Elsewhere Taliban fighters intensified clashes with Afghan forces and attacked militias allied with the government, officials said, stretching their dominance of border towns and closing in on two provincial capitals.
Another provincial council member said nine of the 10 districts of Jowzjan were now controlled by the Taliban and the contest to control Sheberghan was under way. "Violence has only escalated and there is no way to assess the damage in Lashkar Gah as both sides are locked in an intense ground battle... it is hard to even recover bodies by aid agencies," a senior Western security official said in Kabul.
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