![Commando forces and air strikes by the government were helping to fend off the brazen assault [File: Najim Rahim/AP]](https://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/imagecache/mbdxxlarge/mritems/Images/2019/8/31/514e27d9603841908530d40b59ed9bd6_18.jpg "Taliban launches major attack on key Afghan city of Kunduz")
The Taliban launched a major assault on one of Afghanistan's largest cities, Kunduz, and intense battles were ongoing on Saturday.
The complex attack came as the United States and the Taliban continued to seek an agreement in Qatar that would see thousands of American troops leave Afghanistan in return for security guarantees.
Officials said the assault started around 1am (2030 GMT on Friday) when Taliban fighters targeted the city from several directions.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the attack resulted in the capture of several important buildings.
"The Taliban attacked Kunduz city from several directions this morning. We are in the city now capturing government buildings one after the other," he told reporters.
Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a Kunduz police spokesman, told AFP news agency fighting was ongoing and commando forces had arrived to repel the Taliban attack.
The interior ministry said at least 34 Taliban fighters were killed in ground and air operations in three areas of Kunduz city. Government casualty figures were not given.
At least three civilians were killed and 41 wounded taken to hospitals, said Ehsanullah Fazli, head of the public health department in Kunduz.
The Taliban was in control of the city's hospital, provincial council member Ghulam Rabani Rabani told The Associated Press.
The fighters took hospital patients hostage, defence ministry spokesman Rohullah Ahmadzai told reporters in Kabul. He did not say how many.
"We could very easily attack but we don't want civilian casualties," he said. Hospital officials could not immediately be reached.
'Massive attack'
The Taliban launched the "massive attack" from several different points around the city, said Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, spokesman for the provincial police chief.
Reinforcements arrived in the city and the Afghan air force was supporting ground troops, Hussaini said.
Electricity and most telephone services were cut and Kunduz residents were sheltering in their houses.
Ahmadzai said 26 Taliban fighters had been killed in an air strike but he did not mention any casualties among civilians or Afghan security forces.
"The city is completely empty, shops are locked, people aren't moving and light and heavy weapons can be heard in several parts of the city," said resident Khaluddin, who like many Afghans goes by a single name.
The armed group, which has demanded that all foreign forces leave Afghanistan, now controls or holds sway over roughly half of the country and is at its strongest since its 2001 defeat by a US-led invasion. Some 20,000 US and NATO forces remain in Afghanistan after formally ending their combat role in 2014.
They continue to train and support Afghan forces fighting the Taliban and a local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group.
Presidential spokesman Sediq Seddiqi said Afghan security forces were fending off the attack in some parts of the city, a strategic crossroads with easy access to much of northern Afghanistan as well as the capital, Kabul, about 335 kilometres away.
"As always the Taliban have taken positions in civilian areas," Seddiqi said on Twitter.
Vulnerability
The Taliban has continued bloody assaults on civilians and security forces even as its leaders meet with a US peace envoy in Doha to negotiate an end to nearly 18 years of war. Talks were expected to continue on Saturday.
Both sides in recent days have signalled they are close to a deal.
The United States seeks Taliban guarantees that Afghanistan will no longer be a launching pad for attacks.
The Taliban seized Kunduz, at the heart of a major agricultural region near Tajikistan, for about two weeks in 2015 before withdrawing in the face of a NATO-backed Afghan offensive. The insurgents pushed into the city centre a year later, briefly raising their flag before gradually being driven out again.
The fall of Kunduz underscored the vulnerability of Afghan security forces and played a role in stopping the pullout of US forces under former President Barack Obama.
Since then, the city has come under frequent Taliban attack but the fighters have not been able to repeat a full capture.
"We have lost the city in the past and know the Taliban can attack again from insecure areas," a lawmaker from Kunduz, Fatima Azizi, told the local Ariana television channel on Saturday.
"Unfortunately, civilians are again the victims."
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
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