Afghan forces nab plotters of hospital bombing

KABUL, 22 Sep 2019 [Fik/News Sources]: Afghan security forces busted a gang of Taliban militants including the perpetrators of deadly hospital bombing in Zabul province that had killed scores of civilians, an official statement said on Saturday. 

The country’s defense ministry issued a statement and pictures of the suspected Taliban terrorists including the alleged perpetrators and facilitators of the deadly hospital bombing in Zabul province.

The ministry said the arrests were made during the ongoing Operation Mobeen in restive Ghazni province neighboring Zabul.

“ … Our Commandos and Ghazni PSU [police special unit] arrested 9 Taliban terrorists including 3 prime facilitators to include one person who directly facilitated the Zabul hospital bombing. Operation Mobeen is going on,” said the statement.

The massive suicide truck bombing hitting the main public hospital in the Zabul province on Thursday killed more than 20 people and left more than 90 others injured, Atta Jan Haq, the chairman of the provincial assembly, told Anadolu Agency.

It was the only public hospital in that remote province located between the restive Kandahar and Ghazni provinces marred by the deadly insurgency.

The Taliban took responsibility for the attack, claiming to have hit the regional office of the spy agency, National Directorate of Security, located nearby.

In its mid-year report, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented 3,812 civilian casualties (1,366 deaths and 2,446 injured) in the first half of 2019 alone.

According to the report, women and children continued to be disproportionately impacted by the armed conflict in Afghanistan. Up to June 30, 2019, the conflict caused 430 women casualties (144 deaths and 286 injured) and 1,207 casualties among children (327 deaths and 880 injured).