Gunmen storm Kabul hospital
KABUL: Gunmen attacked a hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, yesterday where the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders runs a maternity clinic, officials said.
There was no immediate information about any casualties in the attack on the Dasht-e-Barchi Hospital, or any claim of responsibility but the Taliban said they were not involved.
The 100-bed government-run facility is supported by Doctors Without Borders, which is also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Wahidullah Mayar, a spokesman for the Ministry of Public Health.
Security forces were working to counter the attack and the deputy health minister may have been visiting the clinic at the time, an interior ministry source said.
Two other security sources said that explosions had been heard at the site.
MSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It says on its website it operates a maternity clinic at the hospital in one of Kabul’s poorest neighbourhoods.
A series of bloody attacks have taken place in the capital in recent months claimed by the Islamic State group.
On Monday, security forces said they had arrested three senior Islamic State members including a regional leader.
Last week, security forces killed and arrested several members of an
Islamic State cell that authorities said was responsible for several high-profile attacks in Kabul including one on a Sikh temple in March.
Roadside blasts in the capital on Monday, which wounded four civilians, were claimed by the group.
Meanwhile, dozens of people are believed to have been killed or wounded in a suicide blast yesterday at a funeral in eastern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the local government said.
The attacker detonated his explosives in the middle of the ceremony, said Ataullah Khogyani, spokesman for the governor of Nangarhar province.
“Initial information shows about 40 people killed and wounded in the attack,” he added.
The attack targeted the funeral ceremony for a local police commander, according to Mr Khogyani.
Battle-weary Nangarhar near the Pakistan border has long been a stronghold for both Islamic State and Taliban militants and has witnessed some of the hardest fighting in recent years.
Both international forces and the Taliban in the area have targeted IS fighters, who have largely been pushed out of the province but still retain the ability to launch attacks on urban centres.