Taliban attacks kill some 60 in Kabul
At least 35 civilians killed in hospital attack, 24 dead, 40 injured in suicide car bomb blast
KABUL: At least 35 people were killed when the Taliban attacked a hospital in central Ghor province over the weekend, a presidential spokesman said yesterday.
“When the Taliban entered the hospital they killed 35, all civilians,” spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazawi said, without specifying if they were patients or staff. “This is a cruel crime against humanity.”
He did not elaborate, but unconfirmed reports Sunday claimed that the Taliban had set the hospital alight and killed those inside.
The Taliban have denied the claim, though a spokesman said that parts of the local hospital were damaged in fighting in the area.
It came as the insurgents captured Taywara district in Ghor province after days of fighting, the latest victory by the resurgent militants.
Another Taliban-claimed attack killed at least 24 people in Kabul yesterday.
Another 42 were wounded in the attack when a car bomb struck a bus carrying government employees
It was a huge explosion, my house nearly collapsed, it broke all our windows and doors.
through a Shiite neighbourhood in Kabul, raising fears of sectarian violence in the Afghan capital.
The bus was carrying employees of the ministry of mines, passing from western Kabul to the downtown ministry during rush hour, interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish told AFP.
It was struck by the car bomb as it passed through a busy area of the capital that is home to many Shiite Hazaras, a persecuted ethnic minority. The area is also near the home of prominent politician and former warlord Mohammad Mohaqeq.
An AFP photographer at the scene saw multiple bodies and wounded people in the street, surrounded by shattered glass as security forces cordoned off the area.
The bus’s charred remains were left smoking in the middle of the road as the wounded were rushed to hospitals in ambulances as well as private cars and taxis.
“It was a huge explosion, my house nearly collapsed, it broke all our windows and doors,” a neighbourhood resident who gave his name as Mostafa told AFP.
He rushed to the street which, he said, was “filled with human flesh and blood”.
“It was horrible,” said shopkeeper Momin.
“For at least ten minutes we didn’t know what had happened. It almost destroyed my shop.
“It is a crowded area – many of my friends and other shopkeepers are either killed or wounded.”
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the blast, which came just before 7am. The militant group has ramped up attacks across Afghanistan in recent days, and captured a new district in Ghor province over the weekend.
The insurgents rarely claim attacks with high civilian casualties but do frequently target government employees. A spokesman claimed on the group’s Twitter account that the bus had been carrying employees of Afghanistan’s intelligence agency.
Monday’s attack came as Kabul’s Hazara community had planned to hold a demonstration in the same neighbourhood to mark the oneyear anniversary of twin bombings that killed 84 people, mostly members of the ethnic minority.
But they had agreed to postpone the demonstration over security fears and after meeting with President Ashraf Ghani on Sunday, a presidential statement said.
The bombings on July 23, 2016 were claimed by the Islamic State group, its first significant assault in the heart of the Afghan capital.
The Taliban have carried out sectarian attacks in the past, though they have been rare in Sunni-majority Afghanistan throughout its decades of war.
The rise of IS, which has frequently targeted Shiites, has fuelled the spectre of more such assaults, with fears Monday that Hazaras had been the target of the car bomb rather than the government employees, whose ethnicity was not immediately clear.
Others suggested the politician Mohammad Mohaqeq could have been the target. Omid Maisom Mohaqiq, a spokesman for Mohaqeq, said the bomb had detonated near a checkpoint approaching the politician’s house. — AFP
Mostafa, Kabul resident