At least 15 dead as blasts hit Kabul

At least 15 dead as two blasts occurred near the Afghanistan’s biggest military hospital in Kabul on Tuesday.

According to a foreign news agency, the blasts were heard near the military hospital in Kabul, while gunshots are also heard.

Qari Saeed Khosty, the interior ministry spokesman said the blats took place at the entrance of the 400-bed Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan hospital.

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“Security forces are deployed to the area,” he said on Twitter.

Sebghatullah Arife, human rights activist, shared a picture on the social networking site Twitter regarding the blasts and wrote: “A loud explosion was heard in Kabul just a minutes ago.”

# Breaking.
A loud explosion was heard in Kabul just a few minutes ago. The blast took place near to Sardar Mohammad Daud Khan Hospital, local sources said. , There are no complete details about the casualties. pic.twitter.com/M8eABFkFxB

— Sebghatullah Arife (@Sebghatullahar1) November 2, 2021

Photographs shared by residents showed a plume of smoke over the area of the blasts near the former diplomatic zone in the Wazir Akbar Khan area in central Kabul.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But the official Bakhtar news agency quoted witnesses saying a number of fighters from the militant Islamic State (IS) group entered the hospital and clashed with security forces.

The blasts add to a growing list of attacks and killings since the Taliban completed their victory over the previous Western-backed government in August, undermining their claim to have restored security to Afghanistan after decades of war.

A health worker at the hospital, who managed to escape the site, said he heard a large explosion followed by a couple of minutes of gunfire. About ten minutes later, there was a second, larger explosion, he said.

He said it was unclear whether the blasts and the gunfire were inside the sprawling hospital complex, the largest military hospital in Afghanistan.