IS claims responsibility for Kabul attack

KABUL－Militants of the Islamic State have claimed responsibility for a deadly attack against a military hospital in the Afghan capital Kabul, according to a statement from the group cited in multiple reports on Wednesday.

The attack took place on Tuesday when five members of the IS terrorist group stormed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan Hospital in a diplomatic district, killing seven people including three women, a child and three Taliban soldiers, wrote Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban's spokesman, on social media.

Agence France-Presse had earlier reported that at least 19 people were killed, citing a health ministry official who did not want to be named.

In response, Kabul's new rulers deployed their special forces to the roof of the building in a helicopter seized from Afghanistan's former government.

"The Air Force of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan deployed special forces to the top of the main hospital building to provide security for the medical personnel and patients during a counterattack," wrote Mujahid on Twitter, adding that the assailants failed to enter the main building of the facility.

The five attackers were also killed. At least two attackers detonated their suicide jackets at the gate and inside the 400-bed hospital.

At least 20 people were wounded in the blasts and gunfight, according to an Italian-run emergency hospital in Kabul.

Move condemned

Senior Taliban officials, Afghan politicians and the United Nations mission in Afghanistan strongly condemned the attack.

Officials said on Wednesday that a senior Taliban military commander was also killed during the attack.

Maulvi Hamdullah Mokhlis, a member of the Haqqani network and an officer in the Badri Corps special forces, is the most senior figure to have been killed since the Taliban took over Kabul.

Witnesses described to AFP on Tuesday a scene of terror, as patients and doctors tried to lock themselves in upper-story rooms as gunfire erupted.

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

IS have claimed four mass casualty attacks since the Taliban takeover on Aug 15, including suicide bomb blasts targeting Shiite Muslim mosques.

The hospital, which treats wounded soldiers from both the Taliban and former Afghan security forces, was previously attacked in 2017, when gunmen disguised as medical personnel killed at least 30 people in a siege.

Xinhua - Agencies