Some residents, Provincial Council members and civil society activists, worried about growing insecurity, say 90 percent territory of northwestern Faryab province is under Taliban’s control, a claim spurned by officials.

The police chief on Tuesday claimed that 160 Taliban militants were killed and 52 others wounded in a recent operation in southern Helmand province.

Police on Tuesday said 13 armed groups operated in eastern Kunar province, but none of them were able to capture any security position from Afghan forces.

NATO chief Jen Stoltenberg on Monday said he spoke to President Ashraf Ghani and discussed with him the peace process, saying the western military alliance’s position has not changed and their troops presence in Afghanistan was conditions based.

A number of former military chiefs and members of the Wolesi Jirga (Lower House of Parliament) have said the Taliban are not able to get access to hi-tech drones without the help of neighboring countries.

Abdullah Naji Nazari, a member of the Badakhshan Provincial Council, said Tuesday the Taliban attacked a checkpoint in Pul-e-Soch in Badakhshan’s Jurm district at midnight on Monday.

First Vice President Amrullah Saleh said on Tuesday that various elections will be held across the country in summer, including the long overdue Ghazni parliamentary elections as well as provincial council, district council and municipal elections.

Meshrano Jirga (Upper House of Parliament) members on Tuesday called on US President-elect Joe Biden to reconsider US policies on Afghanistan that were mostly instituted during outgoing President Donald Trump’s tenure. The senators said a review of policies would be in the interests of security in Afghanistan.

Pence said US forces mission in Afghanistan has been vital to the security of the American people. US Vice President Mike Pence in an address to soldiers who returned from Afghanistan said because of their “service in Afghanistan, there has not been another major terrorist attack on America in the intervening 19 years.”

The Taliban called on president-elect Joe Biden to honour a US agreement to withdraw all American forces from Afghanistan by May to secure intra-Afghan peace talks and end the two-decade war.