A Taliban truck bomb killed at least 20 people and wounded 95 others when it exploded near a hospital in southern Afghanistan, SIA reports referring to TRT World.
The Taliban, who have been carrying out nearly daily attacks since peace talks with the United States collapsed earlier this month, said the target was a nearby government intelligence department building in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province.
A senior defence ministry official in Kabul said the militants wanted to target a training base for the country's powerful security agency National Directorate of Security, but parked the explosives-laden vehicle outside a hospital gate nearby.
Haji Atta Jan Haqbayan, a member of the provincial council in Qalat, said 20 bodies and 95 wounded had been evacuated from the blast site.
"The number of casualties may rise as rescue teams and people are still searching the bodies under the rubble," he said.
Several women, children, health workers and patients in the hospital were critically injured the blast.
Residents near the blast said the explosion rattled homes and shattered windows and was followed by gunfire around 6 am lo cal time.
"It was horrific," said university student Atif Baloch, who saw women and children being dragged away from the scene by rescuers.
"I cannot remember a deadly attack like this in my area."
Panic also spread among residents searching for family members who were being treated at the hospital.
"I rushed to the scene and I am looking for them and cannot find them. My family members are missing. I don't know what to do," shopkeeper Muqim Ahmad told AFP, saying his wife and mother were inside the facility at the time of the blast.
More fighting
Trump's declaration this month that the talks were "dead" spurred the Taliban to declare last week that the only other option was more fighting, sparking fears of an uptick in attacks ahead of presidential elections at the end of the month.
Earlier this week, the Taliban killed nearly 50 people and wounded dozens more in two separate attacks – one near a campaign rally for President Ashraf Ghani in the central province of Parwan, and one in Kabul.
The militants have vowed to disrupt the upcoming presidential election, scheduled for September 28, in which Ghani is taking on his own Chief Executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and more than a dozen other candidates.
The winner is hoping for a mandate to negotiate with the Taliban for a lasting peace in the country suffering from decades of violence.
The insurgents, however, are set on undermining the legitimacy of the process and keeping the president weak.
But even as fighting rages, the Taliban have also continued to voice their belief that the US will eventually return to the table for more negotiations.
Chief negotiator Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai reiterated that stance in an interview with the BBC earlier this week, stating "our doors are open for negotiations".
Trump has also been eager to end America's longest war, launched nearly 18 years ago after the September 11 attacks on the US.
But he has also accused the Taliban of bad faith for launching an attack in Kabul that killed a US soldier, and others, ahead of a scheduled sit down at Camp David that was later cancelled by Trump.
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