At least 40% of the country’s territories witnessed festivities between government forces and the Taliban
...the Pashtun equivalent of men...over the last few weeks, according to security agencies.
The Ministry of Defense said that the Afghan forces retook control of eight districts from the Taliban in the last year.
Violence was expected to reduce with the signing of the Doha agreement in February, but it gradually increased weeks after the accord was signed. The fighting even reached outskirts of cities that were not supposed to be attacked following the deal. Helmand
...an Afghan province populated mostly by Pashtuns, adjacent to Injun country in Pak Balochistan...
, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Farah, Baghlan, Kunduz and Faryab are the provinces that have witnessed most of the fighting over the last year.
"In fact,there were many hardships because they (Afghan forces) received the responsibilities along with reduction in the number of international forces. It was a new phase, and it was not easy," Deputy Defense Minister Shah Mahmood Miakhil said.
The festivities in various parts of the country displaced thousands of families. The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation said this month that more than 70,000 households were displaced this year, most of them due to insecurity.
Kunduz with 10,000 displaced families had the highest number of the internally displaced persons in the solar year 1399.
"Chahab (district in Takhar) is faced with heavy fighting. Our house was damaged. We have come here (in Kunduz) and we are living under a tent," said Naz, member of a displaced family in Kunduz.
The Ministry of Defense said that at least 18,000 Taliban members were killed in conflicts in solar year 1399, but he Taliban has not confirmed the figure and have did not provide information in this respect. The Taliban reiterated that they did not have any spring offensive following the February deal.
"We will witness more incidents and more intense attacks by the Taliban if experienced military officers are not deployed to volatile areas (in Baghlan)," said Atiq Rain, an MP from Baghlan.
The unprecedented rise in assassinations that sometimes happened daily for four to five consecutive days was a new trend of violence during the solar year in which civil society activists, political activists, media workers and
The government blamed the Taliban for these attacks but the group rejected the claim.