{"id":660887,"date":"2026-03-17T01:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/660887\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T01:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T01:00:17","slug":"afghanistan-accuses-pakistans-military-of-airstrike-on-kabul-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/660887\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan accuses Pakistan’s military of airstrike on Kabul hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) \u2014 Afghanistan accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital late Monday. It marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began<\/a> late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.<\/p>\n

Pakistan dismissed the accusation that it had hit a hospital, saying its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan, did not hit any civilian sites.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat, in a post on X, said the airstrike had hit the hospital in Kabul at about 9 p.m. local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility. He said the death toll had \u201cso far\u201d reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured. <\/p>\n

Local television stations posted footage on X showing security forces using flashlights as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building. Fitrat said rescue teams were working to control the fire and recover the bodies.<\/p>\n

The strike came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides exchanged fire<\/a> along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbors in years entered a third week. <\/a><\/p>\n

Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid<\/a> condemned the strike on X, accusing Pakistan of \u201ctargeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors.\u201d In a post before the death toll rose into the hundreds, he said those killed and injured were patients at the hospital. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,\u201d he posted.<\/p>\n

Pakistan dismisses the allegations<\/p>\n

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif\u2019s spokesperson, Mosharraf Zaidi, dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying no hospital was targeted in Kabul. <\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X in the early hours Tuesday that the Pakistani military had \u201ccarried out precision airstrikes\u201d targeting military installations in Kabul and the eastern province of Nangarhar. He said \u201ctechnical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities\u201d at two locations in Kabul were destroyed. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll targeting has been done with precision only at those infrastructures which are being used by Afghan Taliban regime to support its multiple terror proxies,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s Ministry of Information said earlier that Mujahid\u2019s claim was \u201cfalse and misleading\u201d and aimed at stirring sentiment and cover what it described as \u201dillegitimate support for cross-border terrorism.\u201d It said Pakistan\u2019s targeting was \u201cprecise and carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage is inflicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

UN calls on Afghanistan to combat militants<\/p>\n

The strike came hours after the U.N. Security Council called on Afghanistan\u2019s Taliban rulers to immediately step up efforts to combat terrorism. Pakistan accuses Kabul of harboring militant groups<\/a>, particularly the Pakistani Taliban, which it says carry out attacks inside Pakistan.<\/p>\n

The Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously, didn\u2019t refer specifically to attacks carried out in Pakistan but condemns \u201cin the strongest terms all terrorist activity including terrorist attacks.\u201d The resolution also extends the U.N. political mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, for three months.<\/p>\n

Pakistan\u2019s government accuses Afghanistan of providing safe haven to the Pakistani Taliban, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, as well as to outlawed Baloch separatist groups and other militants who frequently target Pakistani security forces and civilians across the country. Kabul denies the charge.<\/p>\n

The latest conflict<\/p>\n

The fighting \u2014 the most severe between the two neighbors \u2014 began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan that Kabul said killed civilians. The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar<\/a> in October after earlier fighting killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.<\/p>\n

Pakistan has declared it is in \u201copen war\u201d<\/a> with Afghanistan. The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including al-Qaida and the Islamic State group<\/a>, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Tarar said the military has killed 684 Afghan Taliban forces, a claim rejected by Afghanistan, which says casualties are far lower. Afghanistan\u2019s Defense Ministry and other officials have said Afghanistan has killed more than 100 Pakistani soldiers.<\/p>\n

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said Afghanistan\u2019s Taliban administration crossed a \u201cred line\u201d<\/a> by deploying drones that injured several civilians in Pakistan last week.<\/p>\n

Responding to those attacks, Pakistan\u2019s air force over the weekend struck equipment storage sites and \u201ctechnical support infrastructure\u201d in Afghanistan\u2019s 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 that sustained minor damage.<\/p>\n

In Kabul, Afghanistan\u2019s administrative Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi said defending sovereignty is the duty of all citizens. Speaking during a meeting with political analysts and media figures, Hanafi expressed regret over civilian casualties in recent Pakistani attacks, saying the war was imposed on Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Ahmed reported from Islamabad and Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. Associated Press writers Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) \u2014 Afghanistan accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike on a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":660888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[9600,7574,47300,13214,279748,57,4228,37297,50,3775,6053,53620,16524,31132,5343,96,103,107,130002],"class_list":["post-660887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-activism","tag-afghanistan","tag-afghanistan-government","tag-asia-pacific","tag-asif-ali-zardari","tag-general-news","tag-indictments","tag-kabul","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-pakistan-government","tag-shehbaz-sharif","tag-south-asia","tag-taliban","tag-terrorism","tag-war-and-unrest","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-zabihullah-mujahid"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116241815282922864","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}