Afghanistan sacks top generals over Kabul hospital attack

AFP

KABUL -- Afghanistan Tuesday (April 4) sacked 12 army officers including two generals for negligence over an insurgent attack on the country's largest military hospital.

Gunmen disguised as doctors stormed Sardar Daud Khan Hospital in Kabul March 8, with multiple surviving staff telling AFP that insiders including two interns were among the attackers.

The military head of intelligence and the official in charge of medical support were among those who have been dismissed and will face prosecution, the Defence Ministry said.

"They have been sacked for negligence of duty over the hospital attack," ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh told AFP.

The ministry denies that insiders were involved in the attack and asserts that only 50 people were killed. Security sources and survivors, some of whom counted bodies, told AFP that the death toll exceeded 100.

Public anger has grown over the episode, with speculation swirling on social media that such a brazen attack on the tightly guarded hospital could not have happened without the complicity of high-ranking officials.

The assailants stabbed bedridden patients, threw grenades into crowded wards and shot people at point-blank range.

Hours after the Taliban denied responsibility, the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" (ISIL) claimed it was behind the attack via its propaganda agency Amaq.

But survivors with whom AFP spoke said the attackers chanted "Long live the Taliban" in Pashtu and attacked all but two wards on the hospital's first floor, where Taliban patients were admitted.

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