Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of carrying out an attack in Kabul targeting a hospital treating drug addicts.

Kabul, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban government on Monday accused Pakistan’s military of killing four people and wounding several others in an airstrike targeting a Kabul hospital treating drug addicts.

The attack came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides exchanged gunfire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan as deadly fighting between the neighbors entered its third week.

Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike on X, saying it violated Afghan territory. He said most of those killed and injured were drug addicts undergoing treatment at the facility.

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman Musharraf Zaidi dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying no hospital in Kabul was targeted. He did not give further details, but the Pakistani government and military have repeatedly said their forces only target the Afghan military and facilities in Pakistan that are being used for attacks.

It 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 accuses the Afghan Taliban government of providing safe havens to the Pakistani Taliban, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, as well as to Baloch separatist groups and other militants who frequently target Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country. Kabul denies the allegation.

Four people, including two children, were killed and 10 others wounded in a shootout in southeastern Afghanistan on Monday, Afghan officials said. Mortar shells fired by Pakistan overnight hit villages in Khost province and destroyed several houses, said Mustaghfar Gurbaz, spokesman for the provincial governor.

On Sunday, a mortar fired by Pakistan from Afghanistan hit a house in northwestern Bajaur district, killing four members of a family and injuring two others, including a 5-year-old child. The military on Monday targeted Afghan positions along the border where Sunday’s attack originated, residents and officials said.

There was no immediate response from Pakistan, which has repeatedly said its military targets Afghan posts and militant hideouts.

Islamabad described the situation as an “open war”. Cross-border clashes have included multiple Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari has said Afghanistan’s Taliban regime 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, including an empty security site and a drug rehabilitation center, causing minor damage.

In Kabul, Afghanistan’s administrative deputy prime minister, Abdul Salam Hanafi, said overnight that 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.

The fighting 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’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Sunday that the military had killed 684 Afghan Taliban forces, a claim rejected by Afghanistan’s Taliban-led government, which says the casualties are too low. Afghanistan’s Ministry of Defense and other officials say Afghanistan has killed more than 100 Pakistani soldiers.

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Ahmed reports from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Edith M. at the United Nations. Contributed by Lederer.