QALAT (Pajhwok): At least 20 people were killed and around 100 others wounded in a truck bombing in southern Zabul province on Thursday morning, an official said.
The suicide bombing was carried out through a medium-size truck near Qalat Civil Hospital and National Directorate of Security (NDS) compound in the provincial capital, Qalat.
Zabul governor’s spokesman, Gul Islam Seyal, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the target was the hospital but the Taliban said their target was the NDS facility.
Seyal said 20 people including women and children were killed and around 100 others wounded in the incident.
A majority of the victims were workers of the civil hospital and patients’ attendants, he said.
He said people with serious injuries were shifted by ambulances and helicopters to Kandahar Mirwais Hospital and Afghan National Army’s military hospital.
Slightly injured people were taken to government and private hospitals in Qalat, he added.
Seyal said powerful explosives were used in the blast that totally destroyed Qalat Civil Hospital. He said 12 ambulances with some of them recently brought to the hospital were also destroyed.
Mirwais Hospital doctors in Kandahar province say they sent 20 ambulances to Qalat city and brought 26 injured to the hospital for treatment.
One of the doctors, who wished to go unnamed, said that one of the injured succumbed to his injuries on the way and the hospital sent a team of professionals to Qalat for treatment of the injured there.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi said that the target of the attack was NDS compound where he claimed dozens of Afghan forces suffered casualties.
Mds/ma
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