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BAGHLAN-E-MARKAZI, Afghanistan – In a chaotic day of violence in Afghanistan, many police, soldiers and civilians were killed by insurgents who, in four separate attacks, invaded a major military base, killed a police officer and bomb a memorial event.
In the capital, Kabul, a commemoration of a man that some Afghans regard as a hero become violent while suicide bombers attacked celebrants, killing seven and the police arrested more than 100 people for shooting in the # 39; air.
The deadliest incident was the destruction by Taliban insurgents of a military base in Baghlan province on Sunday, with at least 22 and 40 members of the security forces killed, local officials said.
The military installation was the second largest base to fall in the hands of insurgents in Baghlan province last month and third in northern Afghanistan during the same period.
Abdul Hai Nemati, the governor of Baghlan province, said that the Afghan National Army base in Mangalha, in the Baghlan-e-Markazi district, north of Pul-i-Kumri, had been completely encircled by the insurgents.
Casualties suffered by Afghan security forces have steadily increased in recent years, with the international coalition largely withdrawn and leaving most of the fighting to Afghans. In the first ten months of 2016, the number of Afghan police and soldiers killed is 6,785, an average of more than 20 per day, according to the Special Inspector General for the Reconstruction of Afghanistan, a US government agency.
Since then, the US agency has classified victim information as secret at the request of the Afghan government. Many local analysts say that official deaths have almost certainly increased.
[Read about how Afghan war statistics mislead the American public.]
In Kabul, hundreds of gunmen took to the streets on Sunday, blocking traffic and shooting in the air, challenging the ban on such celebrations in Ahmad's honor. Shah Massoud, the leader of the north killed by al-Qaeda in 2001. 13 people were hospitalized, hit by bullets.
Hashmat Stanikzai, a police spokesman, said Hashmat Stanikzai, police spokesman, said young people had carried dozens of weapons and confiscated 30 cars used in the processions.
Noisy and often violent processions have been an annual event in Kabul for many years. Massoud is revered by fellow Tajikistan as leader of the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban, but he is seen by other Afghan groups as a war criminal involved in mass killings of opponents.
In Massoud Square, near the United States Embassy, security officers fired and apparently killed a man They said that he was a potential suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest. Later, another kamikaze, this time on a motorcycle, attacked a motorcade of Massoud, killing seven people and wounding 20, according to Stanikzai.
In northern Baghlan province, a senior police official said insurgents captured Mangalha base on Sunday and killed 40 national and local soldiers and police in the facility and smaller outposts in the area. region.
The manager requested anonymity because he was not allowed to disclose the information. Afghan officials have often responded with denial in response to initial reports of serious setbacks.
A Ministry of Defense spokesman in Kabul, Ghafoor Ahmad Jawed, said the description of the military installations by the local authorities was inaccurate.
Mr. Jawed said that it was a "checkpoint" comprising representatives of the Afghan National Army and other units. Jawed also denied that the Taliban had captured him, saying he had been abandoned by the defenders. "We do not know the number of A.N.A. forces in the checkpoint and the number of casualties yet," Mr. Jawed said.
Mohammad Safdar Mohseni, head of Baghlan Provincial Council, said that even before the fall of the main base, the death toll was 22, including 16 soldiers, four police special forces officers and two local police officers.
The village of Mangalha was once a stronghold of the Taliban and insurgents military base last year, only for the government to regain control of the area.
On August 15, insurgents destroyed another Afghan military base and a nearby police station in Baghlan province, killing 39 soldiers and policemen, according to local officials. This base was also in Baghlan-e-Markazi district, in the neighboring village of Alawuddin.
Local officials said the loss of the two bases was threatening the entire district and threatening displacement on the main north-south highway between the capital and northern Afghanistan.
"After the collapse of the first base, other military posts collapse one after the other," said the provincial council chairman, Mohseni. "The Taliban have seized a huge amount of weapons, ammunition and vehicles at these collapsed posts. This is a big threat to the security of Baghlan province. Forces on the ground were not supported; they received no reinforcement.
The previous defeat at Baghlan came a day after the fall of another northern base, at Chinese camp, in the northern province of Faryab, where the 106 soldiers of an Afghan army company were killed or captured by the insurgents. Defenders repeatedly said that they were asking for reinforcements and replenishment that they claim never to have arrived.
In central Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents attacked Sunday Day Mirdad district headquarters in Wardak province, killing district police chief Sayid Yunus and nine other security officials, according to Abdul Rahman Mangal, spokesman for Wardak's governor. Mr Mangal said that 52 militants had been killed and 65 others wounded in the attack, which was postponed.
According to Gaelan Farhad, the governor's spokesman, in western Afghanistan, insurgents attacked a police station in the Obe district of Herat province on Saturday night, killing nine policemen. Sher Agha Alokozai, the police chief of the Obe District, said that eight insurgents had also been killed.
Follow Najim Rahim and Rod Nordland on Twitter: @NajimRah and @rodnordland
Najim Rahim reported from Baghlan-e-Markazi, Afghanistan; and Rod Nordland from Kabul, Afghanistan. Fahim Abed reported on Kabul and Mohammad Saber from Herat, Afghanistan.
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