MAIMANA (Pajhwok): Officials in northwestern Faryab province claimed inflicting heavy casualties on rebels and recapturing large areas of the province.
However, provincial council head says hundreds of families have been displaced due to fighting and families are in dire need of aid.
Acting Governor Abdul Sattar Bariz told Pajhwok Afghan News that 147 militants were killed and 150 others wounded during operations in Almar, Qaisar and Pashtoon Kot districts in the past two weeks.
Taliban commanders Mullah Allauddin, Mullah Abdul Hamid Shamolzai, Maulvi Khan Agha, Mullah Borjan Ghormachi, Mullah Shah Dawood Murghabi, Maulvi Shafiqullah and Muhibullah and two Pakistanis were also among the dead, he added.
The rebels’ commanders wounded in the operations included Mullah Ziauddin, Mullah Abdul Samad, Maulvi Faizulla, Maulvi Hakim, Qari Ahmad Andkhoi, Mullah Adam Khan, Mullah Noorul Haq and Mullah Abdul Haq, he said.
He said the offensive codenamed Sword-7 was conducted by Afghan National Army (ANA) in which 73 villages were cleared of rebels while 12 rebels including a Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Haq were arrested in Kohistan district.
Afghan forces also seized four rockets, 32 weapons, a machinegun, 35 motorcycles, eight bombs, 220 kilograms of explosives and 20 remote control sets from militants.
However, Bariz did not say anything about casualties suffered by security personnel casualties.
However, provincial council head Sayed Abdul Baqi Hashimi said that 10,000 families have been displaced to safer areas as a result of fights during the past one month. He said that 7,000 families turned back to the areas cleared of militants.
But he said that around 3,000 people who were suffering in hard condition were shifted to the capital of Faryab and Balkh province.
Hashimi blamed the government for not helping the families returned or displaced to other areas.
But acting Governor Abdul Sattar Bariz said a Committee of Emergency Situation was surveying the displaced families and 609 families were so far distributed aid.
Ghulam Rassoul, a resident of Din Tash village in Qaisar district, said they were once displaced to Almar and then to Maimana City, the capital of Faryab, due to insecurity. But he said that his family was returned back to his area after Afghan forces cleared it of militants.
“Militants were forcing people to pay Zakat and money and they were using our houses to shelter themselves whenever security forces fired upon them,” he said.
Rassoul said that security situation was currently stable in their area but added militants would again harass people if security forces left the area.
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