20 killed in Afghan hospital bombing

PULI ALAM, Saturday

At least 20 people were killed on Saturday in a suicide car bombing at a hospital in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Public Health said, revising down its previous death toll of 60.

“We are correcting the casualty toll (which) was not as mentioned in the previous statement,” it said in another statement. “At least 20 of our countrymen have been martyred and around 25 are wounded.”

The incident came days after American President Barack Obama said 33,000 US forces would leave the country this year.

Inhumane act

The brazen suicide attack in Logar Province, just south of the capital Kabul, killed women and children.

“This inhumane act is unprecedented in the history of the conflict in our country and targeted a place where wounds are healed and patients receive treatment,” says the ministry statement.

The statement also voiced “disgust and hatred towards the perpetrators” of the violent incident.

Din Mohammad Darwaish, the Logar provincial spokesman, said the attack was a suicide car bombing.

The head of Logar’s provincial council, Abdul Wali Wakeel, confirmed the toll and said local officials had contacted foreign forces to ask for help in evacuating the wounded.
A spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Kabul said he was “not aware” that ISAF had been approached for assistance.

The Taliban denied it was behind the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying: “We condemn this attack on a hospital ... Whoever has done this wants to defame the Taliban.”

Militants in Afghanistan frequently target the Afghan police and other government employees as well as foreign forces in their near decade-long insurgency.

But civilians are the biggest casualties in the war, with 2,777 killed last year, according to the United Nations.

The huge blast comes at the end of a week when Obama announced that 33,000 US forces would leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer.
All foreign combat forces are due to pull out of the country by the end of 2014.

There are currently up to 150,000 foreign forces in Afghanistan, including around 99,000 from America.

Some analysts fear that Afghan security forces may struggle to contain the insurgency, which has hit record violence levels, as withdrawals start to get under way.

Today’s attack came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who issued a statement condemning it, told a counter-terrorism summit in Tehran that militancy was on the rise in both his country and the region.

“Not only has Afghanistan not yet achieved peace and security but terrorism is expanding and threatening more than ever Afghanistan and the region,” he told the opening session.