The Afghan deputy government spokesperson, Hamdullah Fitrat, posted on X that a Pakistani airstrike struck a drug‑rehabilitation hospital in Kabul at about 9 p.m. local time on Monday, destroying large sections of the 2,000‑bed facility and causing a death toll that “so far” had reached 400 people, with roughly 250 injured. Video posted by local television stations showed security forces using flashlights to move casualties while firefighters battled flames amid the ruins. Fitrat said rescue teams were working to control the fire and recover bodies.
Pakistan rejected the accusation. Mosharraf Zaidi, spokesperson for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, called the claim “baseless,” insisting that “no hospital was targeted in Kabul.” In a separate X post, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar asserted that Pakistani forces had executed “precision airstrikes” against military installations in Kabul and the eastern province of Nangarhar, destroying “technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities” at two Kabul locations.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid also condemned the strike, calling it a “crime against humanity” and accusing Pakistan of deliberately targeting hospitals and civilian sites. He added that the victims were patients at the facility.
The incident comes amid the most severe fighting between the two neighbors in years. Border exchanges that began in late February have escalated after Afghanistan launched retaliatory attacks in response to earlier Pakistani strikes inside Afghan territory that Kabul said killed civilians. The latest cross‑border clashes on Sunday left four people dead on the Afghan side, while both governments have traded claims of high casualty numbers in the other’s forces.
The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution unanimously on Tuesday, urging Afghanistan’s Taliban administration to step up efforts to combat terrorism and extending the UN political mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) for three months. The resolution did not name specific attacks but condemned “all terrorist activity, including terrorist attacks.”
Pakistan has characterized Afghanistan as a safe haven for the Pakistani Taliban and other outlawed militant groups, a charge the Taliban‑run government denies. In response to a recent Pakistani drone strike that injured civilians in Pakistan, Afghan President‑designated spokesman Asif Ali Zardari warned that the Taliban administration had crossed a “red line.”
Both sides have exchanged accusations of airstrikes on civilian infrastructure. Pakistan previously said it hit an empty security site and a drug‑rehabilitation center in southern Kandahar, causing only minor damage, while Afghanistan insists the Kabul hospital strike was a deliberate assault on civilians.
The fighting has alarmed the international community, especially as the region remains a potential recruitment ground for al‑Qaeda and the Islamic State. Calls for a ceasefire have so far gone unheeded, and the humanitarian toll continues to rise.