Taliban fighters struck the Afghan provincial capital of Kunduz in a major assault early Monday, government officials and aid workers said.
Fighters attacked the city, the capital of Kunduz province, from different directions, and fighting was still going on more than nine hours after the attack began, Kunduz province police spokesman Sayed Sarwar Hussaini told CNN.
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said Afghan security forces were holding off Taliban forces trying to free prisoners and take over government buildings.
The Taliban claimed to have seized a 200-bed hospital, posting photos to social media that they claimed proved their control of the facility. Hussaini denied claims that the insurgents held any government buildings.
Taliban forces were firing heavy weapons indiscriminately throughout the city, leading to dozens of civilians being wounded or killed, Sediqqi told CNN.
The full extent of casualties was unclear, but the aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres said Monday that its trauma center in Kunduz had received 66 patients, including eight who were declared dead on arrival and 17 who were in critical condition.
Sediqqi said 25 Taliban fighters had been killed. Only a few government soldiers were wounded, Hussaini said.
The assault is the latest in a series of clashes between Taliban and government fighters in the northeastern province.
Taliban forces, boosted by an influx of fighters from Pakistan and elsewhere, have battled government forces throughout the province since spring.
The assault comes a day after a suicide bombing killed at least nine in the eastern province of Paktika. The Taliban denied responsibility for that attack.
