Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 2, 2021
ISLAMABAD — A group of gunmen, reportedly including suicide bombers, assaulted Afghanistan’s main military hospital in Kabul Tuesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding many more.
A Taliban security official confirmed the casualties on condition of anonymity.
A spokesman for the Taliban government said the assault began with a powerful explosion at the entrance to the hospital in the Afghan capital’s Wazir Akbar Khan area. A second bomb went off inside the facility, said Bilal Karimi.
Taliban forces engaged the assailants in a gun battle that killed four of them while one was captured alive to end the siege at the Sardar Mohammad Dawood Khan hospital, Karimi told VOA. He said investigations were underway to determine the circumstances that led to the attack and promised to share further information later. There were no claims of responsibility for the attack.
The official Afghan news agency quoted witnesses as saying “Daesh” was behind the raid. The agency used a local name for the regional affiliate of the Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan Province. It gave no further details.
A spokesman for the Taliban government said the assault began with a powerful explosion at the entrance to the hospital in the Afghan capital’s Wazir Akbar Khan area. A second bomb went off inside the facility, said Bilal Karimi. He promised to share more details later.
Taliban forces were reportedly battling the assailants inside the Sardar Mohammad Dawood Khan hospital. The extent of the casualties was not known immediately nor were there any claims of responsibility for the attack.
There has been an uptick in attacks in Afghanistan by IS-Khorasan since the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August. The violence has mainly targeted Taliban fighters and members of the minority Shi’ite community, killing and injuring hundreds of people.
Islamic State militants stormed the military hospital in 2017 and killed more than two dozen people. The Taliban also had targeted the facility while waging a deadly insurgency against the Western-backed Afghan government and U.S.-led foreign troops.