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Stars and Stripes
Published: April 24, 2014
This story has been updated.
KABUL --- An Afghan policeman has killed three Americans inside a hospital in the Afghan capital, according to a Kabul police official.
The official said the gunman opened fire around 10 a.m. inside a hospital run by the American aid group CURE, located on a busy road in western Kabul that is also home to the country’s parliament. The policeman killed three Americans as they entered the hospital and wounded a foreign woman, according to the official.
The gunman was wounded and arrested, according to police officials.
CURE is a religious-based medical nonprofit organization with headquarters in Pennsylvania that focuses on care for children in developing countries.
Foreigners have been increasingly targeted in Afghanistan recently and this is the second such shooting this month carried out by an Afghan policeman. On April 4, Associated Press photographer Anja Niedringhaus was killed and AP reporter Kathy Gannon wounded when a police commander opened fire on their car.
A Taliban spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment, but the insurgent group vowed to step up violence during the presidential election campaign. The vote was April 5, but vote-counting is ongoing and the election could go to a second round, which would kick off a new campaign season.
Before the election, there were also deadly attacks on a Kabul hotel and restaurant, both popular with foreigners, as well as a botched attack on a Christian day care center for foreign children in which the attackers accidentally stormed the adjacent office of an American aid organization.
Violence in the run-up to the election here led many foreign aid organizations and election monitoring groups to pull their staffs from Afghanistan temporarily.
A statement from the Ministry of the Interior said police were still investigating the motive of the gunman.
Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.
Twitter: @druzin_stripes
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