KABUL —Taliban fighters detonated explosives planted in a tunnel below an Afghan military outpost, killing five soldiers, a police official said on Wednesday.

Six soldiers were wounded in the attack on Tuesday in the Maiwand district of the southern province of Kandahar, police spokesman Mohammad Ashraf Watandost said.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the militants, fighting to overthrow the government after their 2001 ouster, had killed or wounded 35 soldiers and destroyed a large cache of weapons and ammunition.

Afghan border security forces separately thwarted an attack on Italian military advisers at a paramilitary base in the western province of Herat on Wednesday.

Noorullah Qadri, the commander of 207 Zafar military corps, said two attackers who had infiltrated the border security forces tried to kill the Italians.

“The Italian nationals escaped uninjured. One attacker was gunned down immediately and the other was arrested,” said Qadri.

The Italian forces are part of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission focused on training, advising and assisting the Afghan forces in four western provinces. Italy has 895 soldiers attached to Resolute Support.

Earlier on Tuesday, Taliban fighters killed more than 20 Afghan security forces in simultaneous raids on a provincial capital and district in northern Afghanistan.

Hundreds of militants were outside Sar-e-Pul city, which provincial governor spokesman Zabihullah Amani said was at risk of falling to the Taliban if reinforcements were not sent.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on security forces across the country, slaughtering police and soldiers in record numbers, as the threat of a US drawdown complicates American-led efforts to end the 17-year conflict.

“The enemy is still amassing forces outside the city,” Amani said.

“We have deployed all the forces available in the city, but no reinforcements have arrived from outside so far.

“The people inside the city are very worried.”

Taliban fighters launched the attacks on Sar-e-Pul and neighboring Sayad district on Monday night, which Amani said were aimed at seizing control of several oil wells on the outskirts of the city.

At least 21 local forces, including police and intelligence, were killed and another 23 wounded in the attacks, Amani said.

“They have attacked the city many times in the past, but this time the threat is more serious,” he said.

A security official put the death toll slightly lower at between 15 and 20 members of local forces.

Kabul-based interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi confirmed there had been casualties, but would not provide details.

He said reinforcements had been deployed to Sar-e-Pul and dismissed concerns that the provincial capital was at risk of falling to the insurgents.

The Taliban confirmed the attacks, saying their fighters had captured three checkpoints and killed or wounded 50 members of the security forces. — Agencies