KABUL — Gunmen stormed a hospital in the west of Kabul on Tuesday, killing at least four people and triggering a battle with security forces, Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry said.
Afghan special forces were trying to wrest control of the hospital, which includes a busy maternity section, away from the militants after killing at least three attackers, Interior Ministry spokesperson Tariq Arian said in a statement. Some 80 people, including health workers and newborns, had been evacuated from the hospital.
Several doctors had leapt to an adjacent building after at least three attackers wearing police uniforms entered, throwing grenades and shooting, government officials said.
The Taliban denied responsibility for the attack. The militants have been behind a number of attacks even as the United States tried to usher in Taliban-government peace talks after signing a troop withdrawal agreement in February.
The Dasht-e-Barchi Hospital, a 100-bed government-run facility, is supported by the international humanitarian organization “Doctors Without Borders” also known by its French name Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The international aid organization runs a maternity clinic at the hospital, a spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders told NBC News.
Let our news meet your inbox. The news and stories that matters, delivered weekday mornings.
“We are aware of the on-going attack on the MSF-supported Dasht-e-Barchi hospital in Kabul. The Afghan Special Forces are at the scene. For now, our priority is the safety of our patients and staff,” a spokeswoman said by email.
According to the charity’s website it runs a “busy maternity service” at the public hospital, in “one of the poorest neighborhoods in Afghanistan’s capital.” Cases include complications around childbirth such as postpartum hemorrhage, pre-eclampsia, and placental abruption.
The neighborhood is home to many members of Afghanistan’s Hazara community, a mostly Shiite Muslim minority that has been attacked by the Islamic State group in the past.
Meanwhile, a separate grim killing was also unfolding in Jalalabad Province, east of the capital where at least 15 people were killed and 65 injured during an explosion at a funeral ceremony of a police commander in Nangarhar, Attaullah Khogyani a provincial spokesman, said in written statement.
Two provincial Council members were among those killed in the attack, which the Taliban has also denied involvement in.
A spate of bloody attacks has taken place in the capital in recent months claimed by the Islamic State group.
On Monday, security forces said they had arrested three senior Islamic State members including a regional leader.
Last week, security forces killed and arrested several members of an Islamic State cell that authorities said were responsible for several high-profile attacks in Kabul including one on a Sikh temple in March, that killed 25 people.
Roadside blasts in the capital on Monday, which wounded four civilians, were also claimed by the group.
The Taliban have said they are holding back from attacking urban centers and their operations are aimed at government security forces.
The U.S. military is in the midst of a drawdown in Afghanistan. In early March it began decreasing its total footprint from more than 12,000 to 8,600 over 135 days.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with a weak public health system. President Donald Trump is also concerned that U.S. troops in Afghanistan could be vulnerable to the coronavirus outbreak there, officials told NBC News last month.
Trump, who campaigned in 2016 with a promise to end wars like the one in Afghanistan, has frequently expressed frustration with progress there since his early days in office. In March he dispatched Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Kabul to deliver a harsh message in hopes of salvaging a peace deal to ultimately end the war in Afghanistan.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Mushtaq Yusufzai contributed.