At least 400 people were killed and about 250 injured in an air strike by Pakistan on a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital Kabul late on Monday night.Officials in Kabul said the attack hit a large rehabilitation facility around 9 p.m. local time and destroyed significant parts of the 2,000-bed complex, causing a massive fire and forcing rescue workers to comb through debris searching for survivors.According to security sources, the attack was reportedly carried out under the code name Operation Ghazab Lil-Haq. Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of attacking the hospital. Islamabad insists that its forces carried out precision air strikes against terrorist infrastructure and military installations linked to groups it says are responsible for attacks inside Pakistan.Here are 10 things to know about the latest tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan:
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Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of attacking Kabul hospital
Afghanistan’s Taliban administration said an airstrike hit a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, killing hundreds of people, many of whom were patients being treated at the hospital.Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said the attack caused widespread destruction throughout the complex and that the number of casualties was rising as rescue teams searched the debris. He said that the rescue work is currently going on. Videos broadcast on social media and local television showed plumes of smoke rising from the complex as rescue teams carried out the operation.Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid condemned the attack, calling it a violation of humanitarian principles and accused Pakistan of deliberately targeting civilian sites.Read this also Taliban claims, 400 people killed, 250 injured in Pakistani air strikes on Kabul hospital He said most of those killed and injured were hospital patients being treated and described the incident as a “crime against humanity”.“We strongly condemn this crime and consider such acts to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity,” he wrote in a post on Twitter.
Pakistan rejects allegations of civilian casualties
According to the Dawn newspaper, Pakistan has denied targeting any civilian facilities in Kabul and said the airstrikes were aimed at terrorist infrastructure used by groups carrying out cross-border attacks against Pakistani forces and civilians.Pakistan’s Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said the military carried out “precision air strikes” on technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities located in Kabul and eastern Afghanistan.Read this also Watch: Flames, huge plume of smoke seen after Pakistan airstrike on Kabul hospital, in which 400 people died“All targets have been hit with pinpoint accuracy only on infrastructure that is being used by the Afghan Taliban regime to support its many terrorist proxies,” he wrote in a post on Twitter.According to Pakistani officials, the targeted sites were being used by terrorist networks allegedly supported by the Afghan Taliban to plan attacks against Pakistan.
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Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s spokesman Mosharraf Zaidi dismissed the allegations as baseless and said no hospital was targeted in Kabul.According to AFP, officials in Islamabad also stressed that the attacks were carefully planned to avoid civilian casualties and accused the Taliban administration of spreading misinformation to divert attention from its alleged support of terrorist groups operating near the border.
Operation Ghazab Lil-Haq behind latest attacks
Security sources in Pakistan said the attacks were carried out as part of Operation Ghazab Lil-Haq, which was launched in late February to end what Islamabad described as unprovoked firing by Afghan Taliban fighters from across the border.According to Pakistani officials, the operation included coordinated air strikes targeting logistics infrastructure, drone assembly workshops and weapons storage facilities associated with terrorist groups.
During Monday night’s attacks, Pakistani forces reportedly targeted several sites in Kabul as well as Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan.According to Dawn, security sources said that several military installations and technical support facilities used by the terrorists were destroyed in the operation, while drone assembly workshops and weapons stores were also affected.
Cross-border conflict enters third week
The latest attack came hours after Afghan officials said the two countries exchanged fire along their shared border, killing at least four people in Afghanistan.The clashes are part of a broader conflict that began on February 26 and has steadily escalated over the past three weeks.The confrontation began after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to earlier Pakistani air strikes, which Kabul said had killed civilians inside Afghanistan. The clashes also disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar last year after earlier fighting between the two sides.Since then, the two countries have exchanged artillery fire, airstrikes and drone attacks along the border, raising fears of a wider confrontation between the neighboring countries.
Conflicting claims on casualties and attacks
Pakistan and Afghanistan have released completely different casualty figures during the ongoing conflict.Pakistani officials say their forces have killed hundreds of Afghan Taliban fighters during recent operations. However, Afghan officials dispute those numbers and claim that Pakistani forces suffered heavy losses.Pakistan’s leadership has also accused the Taliban administration of allowing terrorist groups to operate from Afghan territory.Officials in Islamabad say these groups, particularly Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, have carried out repeated attacks inside Pakistan targeting security forces and civilians.
Pakistan says Taliban has crossed ‘red line’
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari accused Afghanistan’s Taliban administration of crossing the ‘red line’ by deploying drones, which left several civilians injured inside Pakistan last week.Islamabad says the attacks prompted further military operations to target terrorist infrastructure across the border.Afghanistan’s Taliban government has repeatedly denied the allegations and said it does not allow any group to use Afghan territory to launch attacks against other countries.
Pakistan rejects Taliban claims as ‘misreporting of facts’
Pakistan’s Information Ministry also rejected claims that a drug rehabilitation hospital was targeted.“The claims of this discredited so-called spokesperson of the Taliban regime are yet another misreporting of facts aimed at misleading public opinion,” the ministry said in a post on Twitter.It said: “On the night of March 16, Pakistan targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage, of the Afghan Taliban and Fitnah al Khawarij in Kabul and Nangarhar, which were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians. The post-strike explosion of stored ammunition being used by the master terror proxy also completely refutes the fake claim.” “The targeting of Pakistan has been done precisely and carefully to ensure that no collateral damage is caused. This misreporting of facts attempts to inflame emotions while covering up illegitimate support to cross-border terrorism. The statement is rejected as being false and misleading.”
Pakistan has refused to reject China’s mediation offer.
Pakistan’s Foreign Office also rejected reports that it had rejected China’s mediation efforts aimed at reducing tensions with Afghanistan.Foreign Office spokesman Tahir Andrabi said such claims were baseless.“Pakistan and China remain trusted partners and close friends, and both maintain regular and close communications on all issues of mutual concern and shared interest.“Therefore, any unnecessary speculation or fabrication of facts in this regard is unwarranted,” he said.China urged both sides to return to talksChina has called on both countries to avoid further tensions and resume talks.Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that preventing the conflict from escalating is the most important priority.“The most urgent task is to stop the expansion of the war and bring the two countries back to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” he said.“China is willing to continue efforts to achieve reconciliation and ease relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said.
Security concerns have increased across the region
The escalating conflict has raised international concern as the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region has historically been a hotbed of terrorist activity.The UN Security Council recently called on Taliban officials in Afghanistan to step up counter-terrorism efforts and condemned terrorist activity across the region.The council also extended the mandate of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan by three months as tensions between the two countries continue to rise.The International Human Rights Foundation also condemned the strike. The organization called for an “independent investigation” into the incident in a statement. Meanwhile, in a separate incident, at least two people were abducted and later killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district, according to Dawn.