A suicide bomber reportedly dispatched by the Taliban killed at least 6 people and wounded 23 more when he detonated explosives at a military hospital in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Saturday.
Responsibility for the blast was claimed by the Taliban, whose spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said two attackers had entered the heavily secured hospital. The Taliban said that 51 people were killed in the incident.
The Afghan Defense Ministry said that the blast took place in a tent used as a dining room by students at the city center hospital, one of the biggest and best equipped in Afghanistan.
NATO forces do not use the hospital, though it is thought that foreign medics are frequently stationed there to train their Afghan counterparts.
"There was a suicide attack at a tent used as a dining facility by medical students inside the hospital," said defense ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi.
"The blast killed six people and wounded 23 others and all of them are medical students," he said.
A doctor inside the hospital, speaking to Agence-France Presse by telephone on condition of anonymity, said people in the building within the compound had been shut into one room as searches went on for other attackers. The hospital had had now been evacuated, he said.
Mohammad Zaher, head of the Kabul police criminal investigation department, said that searches were still going on at the hospital for another possible attacker.
However, General Azimi denied reports that there was a second suicide attacker on the loose in the hospital.
The hospital is located in a heavily guarded area of the capital, home to several foreign embassies and international organizations.
The roads to the hospital were blocked and Afghan security forces including the Afghan intelligence agency’s "quick reaction" forces cordoned off the facility, while police and soldiers were also on the scene.
Relatives of patients inside the hospital gathered nearby after trying but failing to find out if their family members were safe, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Afghanistan’s military is frequently targeted by the Taliban and other militants. There has been a recent spike in suicide bombings—a key Taliban tactic—and other attacks in Afghanistan.
Two rockets were fired overnight into Kabul city landing in an empty plot, causing no damage or casualties, interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told AFP.
Afghan forces are set to take increasing responsibility for security as foreign combat troops withdraw in a process starting in July 2011 but not due to be completed before 2014. Many political and military observers say that they don’t believe that the Afghan military is capable of withstanding Taliban assaults in the long term. They also say that it’s a matter of time before the Taliban once again wrests control of Afghanistan.
The worst fighting in Afghanistan usually comes in spring and summer, and the fighting season is starting to get under way.
The Taliban announced the start of its spring fighting season at the end of last month.
On Thursday, 36 people were killed when militants attacked a road construction company’s compound in eastern Afghanistan in the biggest attack since the Taliban announced the start of the fighting season.
Despite the presence of up to 150,000 foreign troops, violence across Afghanistan is at its worst since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban government by US-backed Afghan forces, and last year saw record casualties on both sides. The United States has spent more than $700 billion to fight terrorism in Afghanistan.