KABUL — Afghanistan’s interim government accused Pakistan of carrying out an airstrike on a Kabul drug treatment hospital late Monday, saying the attack killed at least 400 people and injured about 250 — a sharp escalation in a weeks-long cross-border conflict.
Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat posted on X that the strike hit the hospital at about 9 p.m., destroying large sections of what he described as a 2,000-bed facility. Rescue teams were reported working through the night to control fires and recover bodies. Local television footage showed security forces using flashlights to move casualties and firefighters operating amid heavy rubble.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the attack on X, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites” and calling the incident a crime against humanity. He said those killed and wounded were patients at the facility.
Pakistan rejected the allegation that it struck a hospital. Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesman for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, called the claim baseless. Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said its recent strikes in Kabul and eastern Nangarhar “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including technical equipment and ammunition storage” used by militants based in Afghanistan, and were carried out to avoid collateral damage. The ministry called Afghan assertions “false and misleading.”
The reported hospital strike followed hours after renewed exchanges of fire along the shared border, which Afghan officials said killed four people in Afghanistan. The clashes are the deadliest between the neighbors in years and have continued into a third week, after fighting flared in late February following Afghan cross-border attacks that were framed as responses to earlier Pakistani airstrikes that Kabul said had killed civilians. The violence has undermined a Qatar-brokered ceasefire agreed last October.
The U.N. Security Council on Monday issued a unanimous resolution urging Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to strengthen efforts against terrorism and extended the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for three months. Pakistan has repeatedly accused Kabul of harboring the Pakistani Taliban and other militants; Afghanistan rejects those charges.
Both sides have traded casualty figures that the other disputes. Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Pakistani forces had killed 684 Afghan Taliban fighters, a number rejected by Kabul. Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry has claimed it killed more than 100 Pakistani soldiers. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said Afghanistan’s Taliban administration crossed a “red line” by deploying drones that injured Pakistani civilians last week.
Pakistan also said its air force struck equipment storage sites and “technical support infrastructure” in Kandahar Province, alleging those locations were used for operations inside Pakistan. Kabul said earlier strikes hit two spots, including an empty security site and a drug rehabilitation center that suffered only minor damage.
In Kabul, administrative Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi said defending sovereignty is a civic duty and expressed regret for civilian losses, calling the conflict “imposed on Afghanistan.” International appeals for a ceasefire have so far not halted the exchanges, and tensions and retaliatory strikes continue to mount.