Taliban insurgents killed 17 Afghan National Army soldiers in a single incident in northern Badakshan Province, an area far from insurgent strongholds and one that had been generally quiet until recent months, Afghan officials announced Wednesday.
The incident began when a supply convoy of Afghan soldiers was ambushed by the insurgents on Monday, with one soldier killed and 23 others captured in the rugged Warduj District, according to Abdul Marouf Rasikh, spokesman for the provincial governor in Badakhshan.
Negotiations using tribal elders as intermediaries were carried out and six of the soldiers were released alive, but another 16 were executed, Mr. Rasikh said. Their bodies were turned over to the authorities by the same elders, he said.
It was one of the single deadliest attacks on government soldiers by the insurgents in recent memory.
Relief workers in the remote area have been warned since late last year to avoid travel on the main highway linking Warduj District to the provincial capital, Fayzabad, about 40 miles away. Until the latest upsurge in violence, as few as one insurgent incident every three months had been recorded in Badakhshan Province, making it one of the safest places in Afghanistan.
The district lies along the highway leading into the Wakhan Corridor, an area of very high mountains bordered by China and Pakistan, and one that is popular with foreign climbers and trekkers.