KABUL — At least 100 security forces have been killed in the ongoing struggle to push the Taliban from the embattled Afghan city of Ghazni, a government minister said on Monday, four days after the fighting began.

The announcement came as fresh reinforcements were deployed to the provincial capital and air strikes targeted Taliban positions, according to Defense Minister Tariq Shah Bahrami.

“About 100 security forces have lost their lives and between 20 and 30 civilians have been killed,” Bahrami told a press conference in Kabul.

“194 enemy fighters, including 12 of their key commanders, have also been killed,” he added.

At least 95 Taliban combatants were killed in the air strikes, Bahrami said.

Communication networks remained mostly down, and officials have been reticent to speak about the situation in the city, making any information difficult to verify.

The Taliban attack is a blow to President Ashraf Ghani weeks before parliamentary elections are due and dampens hopes of a start to peace talks.

Diplomats in Kabul said the government had admitted being taken by surprise by the attack and after 72 hours with minimal public comment from the presidential palace, Ghani announced on Twitter that reinforcements would be sent to the city urgently.

Afghan officials said US special forces units were on the ground helping to coordinate air strikes and ground operations and the US military said American aircraft had launched two dozen air strikes since Friday.

The Afghan government controls Ghazni, he said, adding there was no threat of collapse from “isolated and disparate” Taliban forces in the city with Highway 1, the main route from Kabul, open.

“That said, clearing operations are ongoing and sporadic clashes with the Taliban, particularly outside the city, continue,” he added.

The Ghazni fighting adds to an increasingly fevered political atmosphere ahead of parliamentary elections in October, which have faced widespread concerns over potential security threats from both the Taliban and other armed groups.

As troops were battling Taliban fighters in Ghazni, a suicide bomber in Kabul detonated explosives near the office of the independent election commission, where dozens of protesters had gathered, killing at least one police officer and wounding another, said a security official who sought anonymity.

The protesters had turned out in support of a parliamentary candidate disqualified by electoral officials over suspected links with illegal armed groups, as barred lawmakers encourage protests to disrupt the panel’s activities.

News from Ghazni remains patchy and incomplete four days after the insurgents launched an assault in the early hours of Friday, with communications badly hit after fighting destroyed most of the city’s telecoms masts.

But people escaping the city have described widespread destruction and bloodshed and Afghanistan’s largest television station, Tolo News, broadcast shaky phone footage showing fires apparently raging across the blacked-out center.

The onslaught on Ghazni is the latest attempt by the Taliban to overrun an urban center, and comes as pressure increases on the insurgents to begin peace talks with the government to end the nearly 17-year-old war.

It is also the largest tactical operation launched by the Taliban since an unprecedented truce in June brought fighting between security forces and the Taliban to a temporary pause, providing war-weary Afghans some welcome relief.

Ghazni lies along the major Kabul-Kandahar highway, effectively serving as a gateway between Kabul and the militant strongholds in the south. — Agencies