Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital.
Afghanistan’s Deputy Government Spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat, noted in a post on X that the airstrike had hit the Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul at about 9 p.m. local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility.
He said that the death toll had “so far” reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured. “Rescue teams are currently at the scene, working to control the fire and recover the remaining bodies of the victims,” he added.
Afghan Government Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike on X, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors.”
In a post before the death toll rose into the hundreds, he said that those killed and injured were patients at the hospital. “We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,” he posted.
The strike came hours after Afghan officials said that the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbors in years entered a third week.
Afghan officials said that four people, including two children, were killed, and 10 other people were wounded in southeastern Afghanistan in Monday’s exchange of fire.
Mustaghfar Gurbaz, a Spokesperson for the Provincial Governor, said mortar shells fired from Pakistan overnight struck villages in the Khost province and destroyed several homes.
The attack on the hospital marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.
Fighting between the two nations erupted last month when Pakistan launched air strikes in Afghanistan that Islamabad said were targeting armed groups. Afghanistan called the strikes a violation of its sovereignty and launched its own attacks.
The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar in October after earlier fighting killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected rebels.
Pakistani Minister of Information Attaullah Tarar said on Sunday that the military has killed 684 Afghan Taliban forces, a claim rejected by the Taliban government in Afghanistan, which says the casualties are far lower.
Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry and other officials have said that Afghanistan has killed more than 100 Pakistani soldiers. On Sunday, the World Food Programme (WFP) said that it had begun mobilising to provide “immediate lifesaving food” to more than 20,000 families that have been displaced in Afghanistan due to the conflict.
The hospital strike also came hours after the UN Security Council called on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to immediately step up efforts to combat terrorism. Pakistan accuses Kabul of harboring militant groups, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, which it says carry out attacks inside Pakistan.
The Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously, didn’t refer specifically to attacks carried out in Pakistan but condemns “in the strongest terms all terrorist activity including terrorist attacks.” The resolution also extends the UN political mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, for three months.
Pakistan’s government accuses Afghanistan of providing safe haven to the Pakistani Taliban, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, as well as to outlawed Baloch separatist groups and other militants who frequently target Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country. Kabul denies the charge.
Pakistan Dismisses Hospital Strike Accusations
Pakistan dismissed the accusation that it had hit a hospital, saying its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan, did not hit any civilian sites.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesperson, Mosharraf Zaidi, dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying no hospital was targeted in Kabul.
Pakistan’s Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar posted on X in the early hours of today that the Pakistani military had “carried out precision airstrikes” targeting military installations in Kabul and the eastern province of Nangarhar.
He said that“technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities” at two locations in Kabul were destroyed. It added that the facilities were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians.
“All targeting has been done with precision only at those infrastructures which are being used by Afghan Taliban regime to support its multiple terror proxies.”
Attaullah Tarar
Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said earlier that Mujahid’s claim was “false and misleading” and aimed at stirring anti-Pakistan sentiment and cover what it described as “illegitimate support for cross-border terrorism.” It said that Pakistan’s targeting was “precise and carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage is inflicted.”
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