The death toll from a massive bomb attack which flattened a hospital in southern Afghanistan earlier this week has risen to at least 39, officials said Friday.
The jump in the toll from the blast, which took place in the town of Qalat in Zabul province on Thursday, takes the total number of people killed in just three days of violence across the war-torn country this week to at least 91.
"The toll from the hospital attack in Qalat has jumped to 39 killed, 140 others wounded," Gul Islam Seyal, the spokesman for the provincial governor, told AFP.
Earlier, authorities had said the blast had killed 20 people.
Another official put the toll even higher Friday, at 41.
Thursday's bloodshed began with the Qalat bomb near dawn.
Hours later, reports emerged of an air strike in eastern Nangarhar province said to have killed at least nine civilians.
"US forces conducted a precision strike against Da'esh terrorists in Nangarhar early (on September 19)," Col. Sonny Leggett, spokesman for US Forces-Afghanistan, said in a statement on Friday, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State militant group.
"We are aware of allegations of the death of non-combatants and are working with local officials to determine the facts to ensure this is not a ploy to deflect attention from the civilians murdered by the Taliban at a hospital in Zabul earlier."
The strike came just hours after four people were killed on Wednesday when unknown gunmen and a suicide bomber stormed a government building in nearby Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar.
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