Suicide bomber kills 60, wounds 120 at Afghanistan hospital
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Kabul, June 25, IRNA -- A suicide car bomber set off a huge blast Saturday at a hospital in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 60 people, Afghan officials said.
The building of the hospital was destroyed and the bodies are buried under the rubble.
The Afghan Health Ministry said the explosion in Logar province, about 40 kilometers from the capital, Kabul, wounded another 120 people. Women and children were among the casualties.
“This heartbreaking and inhuman incident has no precedent in the country’s history of war,” the ministry said in a statement condemning the attack.
“This is a place where sick and wounded people are brought to be cared for.”
Neither the hospital nor anyone associated with it was involved in political or military activities, the ministry said.
The Taliban has denied responsibility for the attack, saying the militant group does not target hospitals.
Earlier, authorities in northern Afghanistan said a bicycle bomb exploded in a bazaar late Friday, killing 10 people, including a police officer.
Officials say 24 people, including five women and a policeman, were wounded in the blast in the Khanabad district of Kunduz province.
In another development, NATO says one of its service members was killed in an insurgent attack Saturday in eastern Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday welcomed the US decision to withdraw more than 30,000 American troops over the next year, calling it the “right decision for the interest of both countries.”
“The Afghan people’s trust in the Afghan Army and police is growing every day and preservation of this land is the job of Afghans,” President Karzai said in remarks broadcasr live on Kabul TV.
In a nationally televised address Wednesday evening, US President Barack Obama said he was beginning to draw down the number of U.S. troops 'from a position of strength' after an intensive counterinsurgency effort.
'We have put al-Qaeda on a path to defeat,' he said, prominently citing the killing of the terrorist network's leader, Osama bin Laden.
And while he briefly acknowledged the reality that U.S. troops would be fighting in Afghanistan for at least another three years and that 'huge challenges remain,' Obama's emphasis was on a door closing on a decade of war.
'It is time to focus on nation-building here at home,' Obama said. 'These long wars will come to a responsible end.'
The war has killed at least 1,500 members of the U.S. military and wounded another 12,000 since the war began in late 2001.
Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30447575
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