Suicide Car Bomb Targets Afghanistan Hospital

Scores of people have been killed after a car bomb exploded near a maternity hospital in Afghanistan in one of the most deadly such attacks on civilians this year.

The device was reportedly detonated by a suicide bomber in Logar province, close to the Pakistan border and about 46 miles (75km) south of the capital Kabul .

Early reports suggested that there were as many as 60 fatalities, including many women and children - and another 120 people were wounded in the explosion.

But those figures have since been downgraded and various news agencies are reporting that at least 35 people died in the explosion, which caused the hospital to collapse.

Officials described the attack on the Akbarkhail Public Medical Centre in the normally safe Azra district as unusual in the decade-long war.

The Ministry of Public Health said in a statement: "This inhumane act is unprecedented in the history of the conflict in our country and targeted a place where wounds are healed and patients receive treatment.

"Our countrymen - including children, women, youths and men - have been martyred and 120 others including health workers have been injured."

The Taliban has denied responsibility for the attack.

Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, said: "We condemn this attack on a hospital ... whoever has done this wants to defame the Taliban."

An eyewitness, Abdul Rahman, told French news agency AFP that he lost a number of relatives in the blast and saw people burning alive, after rushing to the scene.

He said: "Seven members of my family including three women and two children went to that hospital this morning.

"I was at home, then I heard a big explosion. When I rushed to the site, I saw many dead and injured people.

"Many of them were burning, on fire. There were body parts everywhere. My family is dead, I can't find them, they are under the rubble."

The attack was the deadliest since February, when three men shot dead 38 people at a Kabul Bank branch in Jalalabad. The Taliban claimed responsibility on that occasion.

And the explosion comes days after US President Barack Obama revealed plans to withdraw 33,000 troops from the Middle East country by the end of next summer.

All foreign combat forces are due to pull out of the country by the end of 2014.

There are currently up to 150,000 foreign forces in Afghanistan, including about 99,000 from the US.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "savage and ignorant" in a statement released by his office.

"Not only has Afghanistan not yet achieved peace and security but Afghanistan and the region," he said.

The blast in Logar is the second major attack in Afghanistan in two days - on Friday, 10 people were killed by a bicycle bomb which went off in the northern province of Kunduz.