Afghanistan has accused Pakistan’s military of launching an air strike on a hospital treating drug users in the capital, Kabul, killing at least 400 people.
Pakistan dismissed the claim as “false and aimed at misleading public opinion”, saying it only targeted military installations in Kabul and the province of Nangahar on Monday. The attack on Kabul’s Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital took place at about 9pm local time (16:30 GMT), according to Hamdullah Fitrat, the deputy spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government.
The hospital is a 2,000-bed facility, and the raid destroyed large sections of the building, he wrote on X.
“Unfortunately, the death toll has so far reached 400, while around 250 others have 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. Local television stations posted footage showing firefighters struggling to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building.
Omid Stanikzai, 31, a security guard at the hospital, told the AFP news agency that he had heard jets patrolling in the sky before the attack.“There were military units all around us. When these military units fired on the jet, the jet dropped bombs and a fire broke out,” he said.
All of the dead and injured were civilians, he added. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman, Mosharraf Zaidi, dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying that no hospital was targeted in Kabul.
In a post on X, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said the strikes had “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban” and Afghanistan-based Pakistani fighters in Kabul and Nangarhar. It added that the facilities were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians.
Pakistan’s targeting was “precise and carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage is inflicted”, the ministry said. The ministry said Mujahid’s claim was aimed at stirring anti-Pakistan sentiment and to cover what it described as the Taliban’s “illegitimate support for cross-border terrorism”.
The comments came hours after the United Nations Security Council called on Afghanistan’s Taliban government to immediately step up efforts to combat terrorism. Pakistan accuses Kabul of harbouring armed groups, particularly the Pakistan Taliban, which it says carry out attacks inside Pakistan.
The Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously, did not name Pakistan, but condemned “in the strongest terms all terrorist activity including terrorist attacks” from within Afghanistan. The resolution also extended the UN political mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, for three months.
Pakistan often accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing safe haven to the Pakistan Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, as well as to outlawed Baloch separatist groups and other groups who frequently target Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country. Kabul denies these claims.
Source: Here
