KABUL, Afghanistan – Three Americans were killed at a private hospital in Kabul on Thursday morning when an Afghan police officer turned his gun on them, officials said, in a new eruption of anti-Western hostility here.
The shooting took place at Cure International Hospital, a 100-bed facility that specializes in the treatment of disabled children and women’s health issues. One of the physicians who worked there was hosting visitors from the United States, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir, the Kabul police chief.
Among the dead was Chicago pediatrician Dr. Jerry Umanos, who had worked at the Cure hospital since 2005.
“We have lost a dear friend,” said James Brooks, the chief ministry officer at the Lawndale Christian Health Center in Chicago, where Umanos had worked for 25 years. “Our clinic is grieving right now. Our hearts are broken.”
Afghanistan’s Minister of Health Soraya Dalil said the other two victims were a father and son who were visiting Umanos. Another woman was with the group and was wounded.
An Afghan government official said the police officer, Ainuddin, a two-year veteran of the department, had only recently been assigned to the unit guarding the hospital. Witnesses and officials said he had fired on the Americans when they entered a security vestibule at the entrance to the building, killing them and wounding a doctor. Ainuddin, who like many Afghans goes by one name, then entered the interior courtyard, where he continued to fire, officials said.
Other officers were reported to have wounded the gunman before he could kill anyone else, although one security official said Ainuddin had shot himself.
The Taliban did not claim responsibility for the attack, raising the possibility that the gunman was part of a growing class of Afghans alienated by the presence of Americans here.
Some spoke of the attacks with little sympathy. “The foreigners have been here too long,” said a man who gave his name as Fawad, whose female relative was in the hospital undergoing surgery. “People are tired of them.”
