A car bomb that exploded outside a private hospital in Kabul has killed 12 people and wounded 105, according to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health. Three victims were civilian NATO contractors and the other nine were Afghan soldiers.
“The target seemed to be a vehicle carrying foreign contractors,” Al Jazeera’s Jeniffer Glasse, reporting form Kabul, said. Afghan users on Twitter said alarms could be heard ringing in the area following the explosion.
Paramedics carried the wounded away on stretchers in a street littered with broken glass and mangled cars, a witness interviewed by the Reuters news agency said.
The bomb was placed in a Toyota sedan, a security official at the scene said.
Parts of the car ripped apart by the force of the blast were scattered along the street. Glass was blown out of the windows of the Shinozada hospital and a six-storey building opposite. On its website, the Shinozada is described as Afghanistan’s first private hospital.
There have been a number of attacks in the city within the past month. At least four people were killed at Kabul airport on August 10 and dozens of civilians were killed in multiple suicide attacks a week earlier.