The attack also hit the hospital in the city | Taliban said the attack was against the National Directorate of Security
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\nKABUL
\nA powerful suicide truck bomb devastated a hospital in southern Afghanistan early Thursday morning, killing 20 people and wounding 97 others, according to the province\u2019s governor, while a deadly drone strike in the country\u2019s east was blamed on US forces.
\nThe Taliban, who claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, have carried out nearly daily attacks since peace talks with the United States collapsed earlier this month.
\nThursday\u2019s massive explosion destroyed part of the hospital in Qalat, the capital of southern Zabul province, and left a fleet of ambulances broken and battered.
\nLocal residents, many of whom had come to see their sick family members, used shawls and blankets to carry the wounded inside the destroyed building, while authorities scrambled to take the worst of the wounded to hospitals in nearby Kandahar.
\nHours earlier, a drone attack in eastern Afghanistan\u2019s Nangarhar province blamed on US forces killed at least 16 and wounded tens of others, most of them civilians, said Jawaid Zaman, presidential adviser on tribal affairs.
\nThe US forces in Afghanistan said they carried out a strike in eastern Nangarhar targeting Islamic State positions in the area.
\n\u201cWe are aware of allegations of the death of non-combatants and are working with local officials to determine the facts,\u201d said Col. Sonny Legget, US Forces-Afghanistan.
\nAngry residents of the area where the strike occurred carried 12 of the bodies to the provincial capital Jalalabad Thursday morning protesting the attack, said provincial council head Ahmad Ali Hazrat. Many more people are believed to be missing.
\nAttaullah Khogyani, spokesman for the provincial governor, also said the target was Daesh group militants who are in the area.
\nBut according to Zaman the local residents had provided prior notice to the local authorities that they would be collecting dried fruit. As many as 50 people were in the fields when the aerial attack occurred, he said.
\nMeanwhile in southern Zabul province, Governor Rahmatullah Yarmal said the death toll was 20 with many of the 97 injured in critical condition. There were contradictory figures of the dead and wounded in the early hours immediately after the 6 a.m. suicide truck bombing.
\nMorning prayers had just finished when worshippers were stunned by the ear-splitting blast that destroyed parts of a mosque adjacent to the hospital and the hospital building, said Mahboob Hakimi, a resident of Qalat.
\nWindows in his home nearly two kilometers (over one mile) away were shattered by the blast, he said.
\nA Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahed, said in a tweet the target was a nearby intelligence office, which he claimed was destroyed and \u201ctens of intelligence operatives killed\/wounded.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The attack also hit the hospital in the city | Taliban said the attack was against the National Directorate of Security online KABUL A powerful suicide truck bomb devastated a hospital in southern Afghanistan early Thursday morning, killing 20 people and wounding 97 others, according to the province\u2019s governor, while a deadly drone strike in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n