Attackers dressed in medical uniforms stormed a military hospital in the heart of the Afghan capital of Kabul on Wednesday, killing more than 30 people and wounding at least 50, said Dawlat Waziri, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense.
A suicide bomber set off an explosion at the south gate to the Sardar Mohammed Daud Khan hospital before three gunmen entered the building and made their way to the second and third floors, said Sediq Sediqqi, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman.
The gunmen killed and wounded doctors and hospital employees and injured Afghan soldiers, according to an Afghan Defense Ministry statement.
Afghan security forces and police mounted a six-hour siege at the hospital, which is the biggest and best-equipped facility in the country. They killed the attackers around 3:30 p.m. local time (6 a.m. Wednesday ET).
The facility, known locally as the “400 bed” hospital, is located only a few hundred meters from the US embassy and the diplomatic quarter of Kabul. Other recent attacks in Kabul have targeted important public buildings, such as the nearby Afghan Supreme Court and national parliament.
A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mojahid, denied responsibility for the attack in a tweet, saying: “Today’s attack on hospital in Kabul has nothing to do with the Mujahidin of Islamic Emirate,” using the group’s formal name.
In the vacuum of a Taliban claim, the ISIS-affiliated news agency Amaq said ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack. Although the group usually attacks sectarian targets, it is credible that it planned and carried out the attack. CNN has not independently verified the claim.
This is not the first attack at the hospital named after Afghanistan’s first president. In May 2011, suicide bombers got inside, and killed six people and injured 26 others. The Taliban claimed responsibility.
Explosions, then gunfire
Witnesses told CNN an explosion was first heard around at 9 a.m. local time (11.30 p.m. Tuesday ET).
Afghan National Police special forces rushed in to counter the attack. Video showed heavily armed soldiers and armored vehicles surrounding the hospital and a helicopter landing on its roof.
“At first there was a firing followed by a huge blast,” an employee at a nearby hospital said.
An employee at an Italian restaurant nearby said she heard one explosion around 9 a.m., then heard gunfire about 25 minutes later.
The attackers were not immediately killed because security forces were busy evacuating patients, the defense ministry statement said.
The injured were taken to the Wazir Akbar Khan hospital, said Smael Kawosi, media relation officer for the Ministry of Health.
Attack condemned
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah condemned the attack.
“I condemn the terrorist attacked on hospital in Kabul,” he tweeted. “While we work for peace, we’ll avenge the blood of our people.”
The US Embassy in Kabul said, “Targeting a medical facility providing care for the brave Afghans working to protect their fellow citizens has no possible justification in any religion or creed.”
NATO forces in Afghanistan indicated that the organization was standing by to assist Afghan security forces, according to tweets from Operation Resolute Support.
“Once again insurgents show complete disrespect for humanity by attacking a hospital. We stand with Afghan people against terrorism.”
The NATO tweets condemned the attack, using an older name for the hospital.
US Army Gen. John Nicholson, commander of Resolute Support and US Forces in Afghanistan, said the attack “is an unspeakable crime.” He praised Afghan security forces for the swift response, saying the forces deserve “our highest praise and respect.”
Soft targets
Militants have long targeted loosely guarded targets in Kabul and across Afghanistan. Last month, at least 20 people died after a suicide blast outside Afghanistan’s Supreme Court in Kabul, police and other officials told CNN.
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives in a parking lot near the court in the Afghan capital, according to Basir Mojahid, spokesman for Kabul’s chief of police.
Earlier in the year, a spate of attacks — two suicide bombings near the Afghan Parliament in Kabul, an explosion at a Kandahar province government compound and a suicide bombing in Helmand province — left dozens of people dead and wounded.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the Kabul attacks, which killed at least 36 people and injured 76 others in the capital.
Last summer, seven students, three police officers and two security guards were killed in the attack on the American University of Afghanistan campus in the capital.
Police searched the university’s grounds and killed two attackers who stormed the campus with guns and explosives, Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of Kabul police’s criminal investigation department, said. The gunmen detonated explosives and fired guns, witnesses said, causing some students and faculty to flee.
