Doctors Without Borders: 16 dead in Afghan clinic air strike

KABUL, Afghanistan — The international charity Doctors Without Borders said at least 16 people including nine local staffers were killed when its clinic came under "sustained bombing" Saturday in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, where Afghan officials said helicopter gunships had returned fire from Taliban fighters sheltering in the facility.

The group said the facility, which was treating more than 100 patients, came under attack at 2:10 a.m. The charity did not say whether insurgents were present, and it was not immediately clear whether the staffers were killed by the Taliban, government or U.S. forces. The group said another 30 people were still missing after the incident.

The dead included seven patients from the intensive care unit, among them three children, it said. A total of 37 people were injured, including 19 staff, and 18 patients and caretakers. Five of the injured staff were in critical condition, the statement said.

Afghan forces backed by U.S. airstrikes have been battling the Taliban street-by-street in Kunduz since Thursday, to dislodge insurgents who seized the strategic city three days earlier in their biggest foray into a major urban area since the U.S.-led invasion of 2001.

The Ministry of Defense said "terrorists" armed with light and heavy weapons had entered the hospital compound and used "the buildings and the people inside as a shield" while firing on security forces.

Brig. Gen. Dawlat Waziri, the ministry's deputy spokesman, told The Associated Press that helicopter gunships fired on the militants, causing damage to the buildings.

Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said 10 to 15 "terrorists" had been hiding in the hospital at the time of the strike. "All of the terrorists were killed but we also lost doctors," he said. He said 80 staff members at the hospital, including 15 foreigners, had been taken to safety. He did not say what sort of strike had damaged the compound.

Army Col. Brian Tribus, a spokesman for American forces in Afghanistan, said a U.S. airstrike on Kunduz at 2:15 a.m. "may have resulted in collateral damage to a nearby medical facility" and that the incident was under investigation. He said it was the 12th U.S. airstrike "in the Kunduz vicinity" since Tuesday.

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