'Spring offensive' starts

The Afghan Taliban launched their "spring offensive" yesterday, heralding fresh fighting in the drawn-out conflict as embattled security forces struggle to recover from a devastating attack on a military base one week ago.

Operation Mansouri -- named after the group's former leader, killed in a US drone strike in 2016 -- will target foreign forces with "conventional attacks, guerrilla warfare, complex martyrdom attacks, insider attacks", an insurgent statement said.

"The enemy will be targeted, harassed, killed or captured until they abandon their last posts," it continued.

The annual spring offensive normally marks the start of the "fighting season", though this winter the Taliban continued to battle government forces, most successfully in last week's attack on the military base outside the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which killed at least 135 young recruits.

With more than one third of Afghanistan outside of government control, civilians also continue to bear a heavy brunt, with thousands killed and wounded each year with children paying an increasingly disproportionate price, according to UN figures.

Afghanistan's Interior Ministry shrugged off the Taliban threats yesterday, saying the offensive was "not something new".

The Taliban statement claimed this year will be different, however, vowing a political approach in areas it controls that will focus on state-building and "establishing mechanisms for social justice and development".

The Taliban announcement comes days after Pentagon chief Jim Mattis visited Kabul as the Trump administration seeks to craft a new strategy in Afghanistan.