Militants infiltrate hospital in Kabul
Attack on maternity clinic set off hours-long police shootout and killed 14 people, including newborns, mothers and nurses.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Militants stormed a maternity hospital in the western part of Kabul on Tuesday, setting off an hourslong shootout with the police and killing 16 people, including two newborns, their mothers and a number of nurses, Afghan officials said.
While the battle was underway, Afghan security forces struggled to evacuate the facility carrying out babies and frantic young mothers, according to images shared by the Interior Ministry. The clinic is supported by the aid group Doctors Without Borders, according to UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.
But the day’s spasm of violence extended beyond Kabul.
A suicide bomber in eastern Nangarhar province — a hotbed of the Islamic State group — targeted a funeral ceremony, killing 24 people and wounding 68. And in eastern Khost province, a bomb planted at a market killed a child and wounded 10 people.
The violence could further undermine a peace process in the wake of a deal signed between the United States and the Taliban in February, which envisages the start of talks among key Afghan figures, including government representatives, and the Taliban.
Near-daily attacks have also left Afghan authorities ill-prepared to face the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 4,900 people in the country and killed at least 127.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in Kabul, where both the Taliban and the IS frequently target Afghan military and security forces, as well as civilians.
The Taliban denied they were involved.
But in a televised speech hours after the attacks, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani announced that Afghan security forces would no longer operate in the defensive posture taken in the wake of the peace agreement.
Instead, Ghani called on security forces to launch attacks against Taliban insurgents.
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the attacks, and noted that the Taliban denied responsibility and both attacks.
“The Taliban and the Afghan government should cooperate to bring the perpetrators to justice,” Pompeo said. “As long as there is no sustained reduction in violence and insufficient progress towards a negotiated political settlement, Afghanistan will remain vulnerable to terrorism.”
Soon after the Kabul attack started, black smoke rose into the sky over the hospital in Dashti Barchi, a mostly Shiite neighborhood that has been the site of many past attacks by IS militants.
The Interior Ministry issued a statement saying three attackers had stormed the hospital and that one was shot and killed while the other two were still resisting arrest.
A few hours later, the ministry released another statement, saying all three attackers were dead and that the operation was over.
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