Five People Dead After Taliban Attack Court in Afghanistan

Five people died and at least 25 were injured after Taliban gunmen stormed the office of the attorney general in northern Afghanistan on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The assault took place in city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The Taliban group claimed responsibility for the attack.

It is yet unclear whether the attorney general was at his office at the time of the attack.

A battle between security forces and gunmen reportedly continues in the building.

The Taliban is a militant group founded in the 1990s seeking to establish sharia law in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The group is known to have carried out multiple terror attacks against authorities and civilians, many of them children, in both countries.

In 2014, the Taliban stepped up its insurgent activities across Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of international troops from the country. The United States officially ended its military operation intended to destroy al-Qaeda camps and remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan at the end of 2014, but keeps a residual force of approximately 10,000 troops in the region.