Several killed in Taliban bombing in Afghanistan two days after the hospital attack

Taliban militants claimed responsibility Thursday for a truck bombing in Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktia, which left five dead, according to the Afghan Defence Ministry.

At least 20 other people were wounded, including five military personnel.

The bombing comes two days after attacks on a maternity hospital in Kabul and a funeral ceremony in Nangarhar killed more than 50 people.

On Thursday, the U.S. government said it believed the extremist militia organization Islamic State “conducted the horrific attacks on a maternity ward and a funeral earlier this week in Afghanistan.”

“ISIS has demonstrated a pattern for favouring these types of heinous attacks against civilians and is a threat to the Afghan people and to the world,” the U.S. special envoy for Afghan reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad, wrote on Twitter.

Unknown assailants had stormed the maternity ward of a hospital in Kabul on Tuesday and opened fire on pregnant women, mothers and newborns, killing at least 24 people.

The aid organization Doctors Without Borders has confirmed that one of its Afghan employees, a midwife, was among the casualties of the attack on the maternity ward.

The Taliban said the latest bombing in Paktia follows a government decision to resume an offensive against terrorist groups. It comes after the Taliban and the United States signed a peace deal in late February.

Earlier this week, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ordered the country’s military to mount an offensive against the Taliban, the main militant group in the country. The Taliban described it as a “declaration of war.”

Source: The Star