President Ashraf Ghani declared a national day of mourning after scores of soldiers were killed by Taliban fighters disguised as fellow soldiers, in the deadliest attack of its kind on an Afghan military base. The attack starkly highlighted the difficulty of the long struggle by the Afghan government and its international backers to defeat the Taliban insurgency. Ghani held an emergency meeting with senior security officials and called for a "serious" investigation into the attack. "It was a chaotic scene and I didn't know what to do," said one army officer wounded in the attack. The base is the headquarters of the Afghan National Army's 209th Corps, responsible for much of northern Afghanistan, including Kunduz, a province which has seen heavy fighting.

Source: The Star April 22, 2017 14:48 UTC