An Afghan military source confirmed that more than 50 people killed, including women and children, following the joint Taliban-ISIS attack, in a village in the northern Afghan province of Sar-e Pul.
The militants attacked a security outpost in the Mirza Olang area of Sayaad district overnight, torching 30 houses, Zabihullah Amani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said on Sunday.
He said fighting was still going on but as many as 50 people, including children, women and elderly men, most of them members of the largely Shia Hazara community, may have been killed, according to village elders. "They were killed in a brutal, inhumane way," he said.
According to The Guardian, many details of the attack, including the identity of the insurgents, were not immediately clear. Amani said they were a mixed group of Taliban and Islamic State fighters. However, the Taliban denied involvement, dismissing the claim as propaganda.
A senior government official in Kabul said that more security forces, including Afghan air force attack aircraft, were being sent to the scene.