Daesh/ISIS terror group, Taliban share conflicting casualty numbers, local media says at least 23 killed, 50 hurt.
The Daesh/ISIS terrorist group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s deadly assault on Afghanistan’s biggest military hospital in the capital Kabul.
A statement in Arabic posted on the terror group’s propaganda site Amaq claimed more than 40 people were killed or injured in the bomb and gun attack on the Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan military hospital, located near the US Embassy in Kabul’s diplomatic enclave.
The figure was refuted by the Taliban, who said seven people – three women, a child, and three Taliban personnel – were killed and five others wounded.
Five Daesh/ISIS terrorists were shot dead at the hospital’s gate and in the courtyard before they could enter the facility, Zabiullah Mujahid, the deputy information minister in the interim Taliban government, said in a statement.
He said the Taliban used military helicopters in the operation, lowering special forces on the hospital’s roof to target the attackers from a vantage point.
However, according to local media reports and sources in Kabul who spoke to Anadolu Agency, at least 23 people were killed and more than 50 wounded.
Daily Etilaat Roz reported that Hamdullah Mukhlis, a senior Taliban commander who headed an army corps in Kabul, was among the fatalities.
Mukhlis became a known face in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rise to power in August, as he was the first Taliban commander to enter the presidential palace after ex-President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and his photo on the former leader’s chair was widely circulated.
Over the past three months, the Daesh/ISIS terror group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives in Afghanistan, including two suicide bombings at Shia mosques in Kandahar and Kunduz that killed more than 100 people.