At least 19 people were killed in the early hours of Tuesday (2), in an attack on the Sardar Mohammad Dawood Khan Hospital, the largest military hospital in Afghanistan, claimed by the Afghan branch (EI-K) of the Islamic State. Among the victims is the head of the Taliban military forces in Kabul, Hamdullah Mokhlis. Another 50 people were injured.
Mokhlis was a member of the Haqqani network, classified by the United States as a terrorist group, and of the Taliban special forces known as Badri 313. He was the highest-ranking Taliban official killed since the group took power in Afghanistan on August 15, and It is therefore the most important “low”. The action coordinated by the EI-K involved five attackers: one detonated a five explosive at the hospital door, while the other four entered firing at once.
“When we received information that the hospital was under attack, Maulvi Hamdullah, the commander of the Kabul military corps, immediately rushed to the scene,” a Taliban spokesman said. “We tried to stop him but he laughed. We later learned that he died in the clashes at the hospital,” he said.
Since August, the Taliban have faced an even more radical wave of attacks by the Sunni group. Less than three weeks ago, in an explosion at a mosque in Kandahar, the country’s second largest city, more than 30 people were killed and 60 injured. An explosion at another Shiite mosque left more than 100 dead and injured days earlier in the northeast of the country.
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