Kabul
Gunmen attacked a hospital in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday where the international humanitarian organisation Doctors Without Borders runs a maternity clinic, killing 13 people, including two newborn babies, officials said.
In a separate attack the same day, a suicide bomber struck the funeral of a police commander, attended by government officials and a member of parliament, in the eastern province of Nangahar, killing 24 people and injuring 68.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack. The Taliban, Afghanistan’s main Islamist insurgency group which says it has halted attacks on cities under a US troop withdrawal deal, denied involvement in both.
A spokesman for the Nangahar provincial government said the casualty toll could rise in the attack on the funeral. Pakistan, in a statement through the Foreign Office, strongly condemned the “inhuman and cowardly terrorist attack on a medical facility in Kabul and suicide attack on a funeral in Nangarhar”.
“These terrorist acts are particularly despicable as they take place in the holy month of Ramazan and at a time when Afghanistan is grappling with Covid-19 pandemic,” the statement said.— Reuters
