KABUL, Afghanistan—Taliban fighters killed dozens of government soldiers in overnight attacks on two security checkpoints in northwestern Afghanistan, authorities and medical personnel said Wednesday, in the insurgent group’s first major assault since refusing to extend an unprecedented three-day cease fire.
The militants launched the attack on the guard posts in Badghis province, on Afghanistan’s border with Turkmenistan, late Tuesday, then ambushed two armored vehicles sent to aid the soldiers, destroying the vehicles and killing those inside, said Abdul Aziz Beg, head of the provincial council.
Mr. Beg said more than 30 soldiers were killed in the attack in the district of Bala Murghab. An Afghan military official in Bala Murghab put the number of dead soldiers at 20. But a doctor at a local army hospital where the wounded were being treated said at least 50 soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded.
“The situation is very tense and tragic,” the doctor said. “We’ve been told not to disclose the actual casualty toll to avoid hurting the army’s morale.”
In Kabul, the Defense Ministry didn’t respond to requests for comment on the attack and the death toll.
The military official in Bala Murghab said two companies of army soldiers, numbering a total of 200 men, were deployed in the district when the attacks occurred. Access for government troops to the district is possible only by helicopter because it is surrounded by Taliban forces, the official said.
After a three-day cease fire, which featured Taliban fighters and government soldiers taking selfies and celebrating the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr together, the radical Islamist movement announced Sunday evening that it wouldn’t extend its unilateral truce.
On Wednesday, it had no immediate comment on the attack. Still, the assault appeared to serve as a reminder to Taliban fighters who embraced their government counterparts during the Eid cease fire that the movement is still at war with the Kabul administration and its American allies and that talks aimed at a settlement of the war are far from imminent.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said over the weekend government forces would continue their truce for 10 days. The government’s cease fire excludes the local affiliate of Islamic State and other Islamist militant groups.
It wasn’t immediately clear, however, whether all Taliban units had resumed fighting. Residents in the eastern provinces of Paktia, Logar and Paktika said local commanders had extended the cease fire in their areas. In Ghazni, fighters seized soldiers and armored vehicles after the truce lapsed and then released them.
The cease fire was the Taliban’s first since they were forced from power in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001. Following a three-year hiatus, the movement slowly coalesced again and now, it is operating in most areas in Afghanistan.
Although it hasn’t seized any of the country’s 34 provincial capitals, its fighters are capable of striking almost anywhere, despite stepped-up military operations by Afghan ground forces and U.S. warplanes.
In late February, Mr. Ghani, with U.S. support, offered the Taliban talks without conditions and recognition of the group as a political entity. The Taliban regards the Kabul administration as illegitimate and is demanding direct talks with the U.S. to end the war.
On Tuesday, Mr. Ghani met with Afghans who had marched from the south of the country to the capital to demand an end to the war. He told the marchers and hundreds of their supports that he was willing to meet face-to-face with the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. He said he was also willing to extend the government’s cease fire for a year if the Taliban agreed to talks.
Write to Craig Nelson at craig.nelson@wsj.com
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