By Shadi Khan Saif

KABUL, Afghanistan 

Days after one of the deadliest-ever attacks on the Afghan army claimed over 100 lives, the Taliban Tuesday ambushed a number of police posts in northern Afghanistan, killing at least seven police officers.

Officials confirmed the Taliban’s coordinated attacks on police checkposts in the Takhar province, but the militants claimed to have also overrun checkposts in the Faryab and Helmand provinces today.

According to Sunatullah Taimure, spokesman for the provincial government in Takhar, police checkposts on a highway between the Khawaja Baha-u-Din and Darqad districts came under Taliban attack.

“Seven of our policemen died in this attack, the security forces also managed to kill a number of attackers,” he told Anadolu Agency without giving details of Taliban casualties.

In a statement to local media, the Taliban said up to 17 policemen were killed in a spate of coordinated attacks in Takhar in which Taliban fighters also died.

In a clear sign of intensified clashes amid the start of the new fighting season, the Defense Ministry stated 47 militants were killed in multiple air and ground raids over the past 24 hours.

Afghan security officials have vowed revenge for the killing last Friday of up to 150 soldiers by the Taliban in an attack on the 209-Shaheen Corps in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif.