KABUL, Afghanistan — Gunmen stormed the main military hospital in Kabul on Wednesday after a suicide bombing at one of its gates, and fighting was underway, Afghan officials said.
Major Gen. Dawlat Waziri, a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, said a suicide bomber on foot had detonated his explosives at the gates of Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan Hospital near Kabul’s diplomatic district, after which other attackers entered the building.
“Now the attackers are on the third and fourth story of the hospital’s main building, and our commandos are inside and the attackers are surrounded,” General Waziri said by telephone. “We don’t know the number of casualties yet.”
Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said initial information suggested it was a “complex attack,” with two or three assailants having entered the hospital. He said the first explosion targeted one of the hospital’s rear entrances, not the main entrance.
Zahir Ziya, a doctor at the hospital, said he feared that the casualties were high, most of them Afghan army soldiers. As the war has escalated and the Afghan security forces have suffered record casualties, the hospital is busy on any given day. It is the main care center for wounded Afghan army soldiers, and the bodies of those who are killed are brought there daily.
NYTIMES, March 08 2017
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