Taliban attacks in Afghanistan kill 58, including most of an army camp

Talibanmilitants have killed at least 58 Afghan security forces in a wave of attacks across the country, including an assault that nearly wiped out an army camp in the southern Kandahar province, officials said Thursday.

The attack on the army camplate Wednesday involved two suicide car bombs, said army spokespersonDawlat Wazir. It set off hours of fighting, killing at least 43 soldiers on a base of about 60.

Nine other soldiers were wounded and six have gone missing, Wazir said. He also said 10 attackers were killed.

The Taliban claimed responsibilityin a media statement.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, a Taliban ambush in the northern Balkh province late Wednesday killed six police officers, according to Shir Jan Durani, spokespersonfor the provincial police chief.

And a Taliban attack on police posts in western Farah province, also late Wednesday, killed nine policemen, said police Chief Abdul Marouf Foulad. He said 22 insurgents were killed in the ensuing gunfight.

• Taliban claims responsibility for wave of Afghan attacks that killed at least 74

Afghan forces have struggled to combat a resurgent Taliban since U.S. and NATO forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014, switching to a counterterrorism and support role.

The Taliban unleashed a wave of attacks across Afghanistan on Tuesday, targeting police compounds and government facilities with suicide bombers in the country's south, east and west, and killing at least 74 people, officials said.

Afghanistan's deputy interior minister, Murad Ali Murad, called it the "biggest terrorist attack this year."