TALIBAN fighters overran adjacent checkpoints in the northern Baghlan-e-Markazi district today, killing at least 48 soldiers and police, officials say.

Baghlan provincial council leader Mohammad Safdar Mohseni said the insurgents had set fire to the checkpoints — one military and the other staffed by Interior Ministry-recruited local militia.

Provincial governor Abdul Hai Nemati said reinforcements had been dispatched to help recapture the checkpoints.

The attacks followed a gradual return to normal in parts of the eastern city of Ghazni after last Friday’s massive insurgent attack, with sporadic gun battles still under way in some neighbourhoods.

A co-ordinated Taliban offensive at first overwhelmed the city’s defences and captured several neighbourhoods.

Government forces have since struggled to flush the insurgents out of residential areas they occupy.

A suicide bombing targeting students sitting university entrance exams in a Kabul Shi’ite neighbourhood killed 25 people yesterday.