19 dead in IS suicide attack on Kabul military hospital

KABUL :  At least 19 people were killed and 50 further wounded in an attack on a military sanitarium in Kabul on Tuesday, the rearmost atrocity to rock Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power. 

The Taliban’s rivals, the Islamic State group, claimed responsibility for the gun and lemon assault in the centre of the capital. 

Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) said in a statement on its Telegram channels that”five Islamic State group fighters carried out contemporaneous coordinated attacks”on the sprawling point. 

“The IS mutineers wanted to target civilians, croakers and cases in the sanitarium,”Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said, claiming that Taliban forces had repulsed the attack within 15 twinkles. 

As part of the response, he said, Taliban” special forces”were dropped onto the roof of the sanitarium from one of the copters that the group seized from Afghanistan’s former US- backed government. 

The attack got under way when a self-murder bomber exploded his snares near the installation’s entrance. Markswomen also broke into the sanitarium grounds, firing their munitions. 

“Nineteen dead bodies and about 50 wounded people have been taken to hospitals in Kabul,”a health ministry functionary who asked not to be named told AFP. 

Mujahid played down the death risk, but verified that two Taliban fighters, two women and a child had been killed outside the sanitarium. 

One woman who had been trapped in the sanitarium when the attack began told AFP how she and her friend” felt we were going to die, that our lives were ending”. 

“There was a blast at the door,”Rowana Dawari, a minstrel and speaker, told AFP. 

“Daesh came and started firing, we were stuck. We heard blasting, glass breaking. We locked ourselves in a restroom,”she said, pertaining to IS by its original name. 

” Latterly, Taliban came and we saw they were with our croakers, so we knew it was OK.”

Amanudhin, a 28- time-old cleanser at the sanitarium, pushed an senior, frail and incompletely observed case, Mariam, down from the scene in a wheelchair. 

“The explosion happed and after a while people started screaming’Daesh is then’,”he told AFP.”We heard a lot of blasting. 

“We were in the 7th bottom and locked ourselves in a room. There were injured people everyplace. Broken glass.”

 They hid until Taliban fighters came to deliver them”They were special forces, professionals, they broke the door and got outside.”

The Taliban spent 20 times waging an insurrection against the ousted US- backed government. 

 Now they face the struggle of bringing stability to Afghanistan, which has been hit in recent weeks by a series of bloody assaults claimed by the Islamic State group’s original chapter. 

“All the bushwhackers are dead. The attack was initiated by a self-murder bomber on a motorcycle who blew himself up at the entrance of the sanitarium,”a Taliban functionary from the government media platoon said. 

 Two explosions targeted the sanitarium area, he’d before said in a statement. 

AFP staff in the megacity heard a alternate explosion some 30 twinkles after the first was reported. 

“I heard a big explosion coming from the first checkpoint. We were told to go to safe apartments. I also hear ordnance firing,”a croaker at the Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan sanitarium told AFP while the attack was being carried out. 

“I can still hear gun blasting inside the sanitarium structure. I suppose the bushwhackers are going from room to room. like the first time it was attacked,”the croaker added. 

 The sanitarium, which treats wounded dogfaces from both the Taliban and former Afghan security forces, was preliminarily attacked in 2017, when markswomen disguised as medical help killed at least 30 people in an hours-long siege. 

Although both IS and the Taliban are strict Sunni Islamist zealots, they differ on details of religion and strategy. 

 IS have claimed four mass casualty attacks since the Taliban preemption on August 15, including self-murder lemon blasts targeting Shiite Muslim kirks. The group regards Shiite Muslims as heretics. 

 The 2017 attack was also claimed by the Islamic State group, and the Taliban denied responsibility. 

 Filmland participated on social media on Tuesday showed black bank jutting into the air after the explosions, the first of which went off at around 100 pm (0830 GMT). 

 Roads close to the heavily fortified”Green Zone”where the structures of several former Western delegacies were located were closed off to business and Taliban guards gauged up quests. 

 The US State Department condemned the attack, spokesperson Ned Price said in a tweet Tuesday evening. 

“We mourn those killed and offer our condolences to their loved bones,”he said.”Targeting medical professionals and cases is contemptuous and has no defense.”