The incident on Monday, March 16, marks a rise in the conflict that started in late February and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as air strikes inside Afghanistan.
Pakistan dismissed the accusation that it had hit the hospital. It said the strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan, did not hit any civilian sites.
Ensure our latest news headlines always appear at the top of your Google Search by making us a Preferred Source. Click here to activate or add us as Preferred Source in your Google search settings.
More broadly, the Middle East has entered its third week of conflict after the United States and Israel carried out joint strikes on key Iranin sites on February 28. Iran has retaliated, plunging the region into war, disrupting oil traded through the Middle East and cause chaos for air travel.
Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat, in a post on X, said the air strike had hit the hospital at about 9pm local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility. Fitrat added that the death toll had “so far” reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured.
Local television media showed footage posted on X of security forces using torches as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building.
The strike came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbours in years entered a third week.
Zabiullah Mujahid, Afghan government spokesman, condemned the strike in a post on X. Mujahid accused Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors”. He also said those killed and injured were patients at the hospital.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman, Mosharraf Zaidi, dismissed the allegations as baseless, saying no hospital was targeted in Kabul.
In a post on X, Pakistan’s Ministry of Information said the strikes “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban” and Afghanistan-based Pakistani militants in Kabul and Nangarhar, saying the facilities were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians.
It said Pakistan’s targeting was “precise and carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage is inflicted”.
