Taliban attack police HQ in embattled Afghan city

Fighting erupted anew in the embattled northern Afghan city of Kunduz today after the Taliban attacked a police headquarters overnight and officials warned that food and other emergency aid cannot get through to the city.
The clashes and the dire warnings underscored the tenuous hold authorities have on this strategic city whose fall to the Taliban was an embarrassing blow to President Ashraf Ghani.
The Afghan government has been criticized for ignoring warnings earlier of Taliban threats to the city.
Moreover, a bombing early on Saturday of a hospital in Kunduz belonging to Doctors Without Borders in which at least 22 people were killed has raised wider questions as to the circumstances that led to the prominent medical charity being hit in an apparent US airstrike.

The Taliban managed to overrun and hold Kunduz for three days last week, until government forces launched a counter-offensive on Thursday. The insurgents have since largely been pushed out, but skirmishes have continued on the outskirts.
Overnight, several militants managed to re-enter the city center and attack Kunduz police headquarters and other government buildings, said Sarwar Hussaini, the spokesman for the provincial police chief.

By this morning, some gunmen had pushed their way close to the main city square. "Fighting is also going on with the Taliban near the Ghazanfar Bank, close to main square," Hussaini said.
Kunduz residents reported hit-and-run attacks by the Taliban, with the insurgents making incursions into the city center from far-flung rural areas, engaging troops, then retreating again.

Abdul Manan, a resident who spoke to The Associated Press over the phone, said he had seen a group of Taliban fighters enter the main square, remove the government flag and exchange fire with troops for half hour, then flee from the area.
With the Taliban blitz, shops closed and people shuttered in their homes, as the humanitarian situation steadily worsened in Kunduz. Deliveries of food and other basic essentials have not been able to get in since the Sept. 28 Taliban assault.