Residents and Taliban police collect debris from a projectile at the site of a strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 13.
Barakatullah Popal/AP
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Barakatullah Popal/AP
KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike that targeted a hospital for drug users late Monday in the Afghan capital. It marked a dramatic escalation of the conflict that began late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes and airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.
Pakistan has dismissed allegations that its strikes in eastern Afghanistan hit the hospital, saying no civilian targets were hit.
Hamdullah Fitrat, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s deputy government, said in a post on X that an airstrike hit the hospital at 9 p.m. local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility. He said the death toll had reached 400 “so far”, while around 250 people were injured.
Local television stations in X posted footage showing security forces using flashlights as firefighters struggled to put out the flames amid the rubble of the building. Fitrat said rescue teams were working to control the fire and retrieve the bodies.
The strike came hours after Afghan officials said an exchange of gunfire along their common border killed four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbors entered its third week in years.
Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike in X, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to carry out horrors”. In a post before the death toll climbed into the hundreds, it said those killed and injured were hospital patients.
“We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,” he posted.
Pakistan has denied the allegations
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman Musharraf Zaidi dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying no hospital in Kabul was targeted.
In a post on X before Afghan officials gave the death toll, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said “military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including the Taliban’s technical equipment storage and ammunition storage, were precisely targeted” and that Afghan-based Pakistani militants were using facilities in Kabul and Nangarhar against innocent Pakistani civilians.
It said the targeting of Pakistan was “precisely and carefully carried out to ensure no collateral damage”. The ministry said Mujahid’s statement was “false and misleading” and aimed at inflaming sentiments, and described it as “illegal support for cross-border terrorism”.
The UN has called on Afghanistan to fight the militants
The strike 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, passed unanimously, did not name Pakistan but condemned “in the strongest terms all terrorist activities, including terrorist attacks”. The resolution extends UNAMA’s political mission in Afghanistan by three months.
The Pakistani government has accused Afghanistan of providing safe havens to the Pakistani Taliban, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, as well as Baloch separatist groups and other militants who frequently target Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country. Kabul denies the allegation.
Recent conflict
Fighting between the two neighbors began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan, which Kabul said killed civilians. The clashes disrupted a Qatar-brokered ceasefire in October, with dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants killed in previous fighting.
Pakistan has declared that it is at “open war” with Afghanistan. The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly in a region where al-Qaida and other militant groups, including the Islamic State group, still have a presence and are trying to revive.
On Sunday, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the military had killed 684 Afghan Taliban forces, a charge Afghanistan denied, saying casualties were much lower. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense and other officials say Afghanistan has killed more than 100 Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari says Afghanistan’s Taliban regime has crossed a “red line” by deploying drones that injured several civilians in Pakistan last week.
In response to those attacks, Pakistan’s air force over the weekend struck equipment storage sites and “technical support infrastructure” in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province, saying it was being used for attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul said Pakistan hit two locations, an empty security site and a drug rehabilitation center, causing minor damage.
In Kabul, Afghanistan’s administrative deputy prime minister, Abdul Salam Hanafi, said it was the duty of all citizens to protect sovereignty. Addressing a meeting with political analysts and media persons, Hanafi deplored the civilian casualties in recent Pakistani attacks, saying the war was imposed on Afghanistan.
