Kabul: Two powerful back to back explosions rocked the Afghanistan capital here on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people and injuring 50 others, the health ministry said, as reports in the media called them ‘fidayeen’ attacks.
Unconfirmed media reports put the toll at 23.
MoI spokesman and Taliban official Qari Sayed Khosti confirmed the blasts minutes within the explosions.
The Health Ministry put out the new toll as the casualty figures trickled out of the hospitals.
Earlier in the day, the media reported that the blasts killed 15 people and injured 34 more.
Social media posts and media reports called them ‘fidayeen attacks’ that took place in front of the country’s one of the largest military hospital, Sardar Mohammad Davood Khan Hospital,
Sources at the scenes said sounds of small arms firing could also be heard from the explosion site.
Media reports earlier put the blast at two sites, including the Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital. Later reports said both blasts took place outside Davood hospital.
“A suicide bomb attack took place in the 400-bed hospital next to the Ministry of Public Health,” an eyewitness told Sputnik. This was the blast near the Sardar Mohammad Davood Khan Hospital.
“Taliban are pushing back media crew from reporting on their casualties. Media censorship is a new reality under Taliban regime. #IslamicState have wage their Jihad against Taliban regime,” social media post read. Photographs and videos from Kabul showed a plume of smoke over the area.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts, but BBC quoted Afghanistan’s Bakhtar news agency, who interviewed witnesses as saying a number of fighters from the Islamic State group had entered the hospital and clashed with security forces.
The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August, as the US withdrew its final troops after 20 years of conflict. A local affiliate of the Islamic State group known as Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K, has since launched sporadic attacks targeting civilians and Taliban fighters.
A bombing by the group at Kabul international airport in August killed more than 150 civilians and 13 US soldiers.
The Sardar Daud Khan hospital has been targeted before. More than 30 people were killed and 50 others wounded in 2017 when gunmen dressed as doctors stormed the building. That attack was also claimed by the Islamic State group, BBC report said.
19 killed, 50 injured in 2 Kabul blasts: Govt
