Pakistan denies hospital strike in Afghanistan as death toll crosses 400 | Taliban news

A Pakistani minister ‘strongly denies and rejects’ the Afghan government’s allegation, saying his country only targets military sites.

Islamabad has denied allegations by the Afghan Taliban government that Pakistani forces hit a hospital treating drug users in the Afghan capital, Kabul, saying its strikes in the neighboring country have avoided civilian targets.

“We strongly deny and reject these allegations,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told Al Jazeera Arabic on Tuesday. “Pakistan has only targeted terrorist infrastructure and military locations.”

On Monday, Hamdullah Fitrat, a deputy spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government, said the Pakistani military hit Kabul’s Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital at around 9 a.m. local time (16:30 GMT).

The hospital is a 2,000-bed facility and the attack destroyed large sections of the building, he wrote in X.

“Unfortunately, the death toll has reached 400 so far, while around 250 others have been reported injured. Rescue teams are currently on the spot, working to control the fire and recover the remaining bodies of the victims,” ​​he said.

In a series of posts on X, Afghan government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the attack as a “crime against humanity”.

He accused the Pakistani military of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure to “carry out terror”, adding that those killed and injured in the strike were patients being treated at the facility.

The latest wave of violence between the two countries began late last month, with repeated cross-border clashes and Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan.

Pakistan often accuses the Afghan Taliban government of providing safe havens to the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, as well as illegal Baloch separatist groups and other groups that frequently target security forces and civilians across Pakistan. Kabul denies these claims.

The UN Security Council resolution passed unanimously on Monday did not name Pakistan, but condemned in strong terms “all terrorist activities, including terrorist attacks” inside Afghanistan. The resolution extends UNAMA’s political mission in Afghanistan by three months.

The World Food Program (WFP) said on Sunday it had begun mobilizing to provide “immediate life-saving food” to more than 20,000 families displaced by the conflict in Afghanistan.