AFGHANISTAN claims 400 people were killed after a Pakistani airstrike struck a drug treatment hospital in Kabul.
Loud explosions ripped through the Afghan capital shortly after 9am on Monday, sending shockwaves across the city.
Emergency services – including fleets of fire engines and ambulances – raced to the scene as rescuers desperately searched for survivors in the rubble.
According to Taliban officials, hundreds were killed when the facility was struck with a further 250 people injured in the ordeal.
Security guard Omid Stanikzai told AFP: “I heard the sound of the jet patrolling.
“There were military units all around us. When these military units fired on the jet, the jet dropped bombs and a fire broke out.”
In the aftermath, Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid took to social media to condemn the attack.
Mujahid said Pakistan had “once again violated Afghan territory”, calling the strikes an “act of inhumanity”.
Sharafat Zaman, spokesman for Afghanistan’s health ministry, said the treatment centre had been entirely destroyed in the blast.
He added that around 3,000 drug users were receiving treatment at the facility when the strike happened.
Pakistan has strongly denied these claims, insisting airstrikes in Kabul and eastern Afghanistan did not target civilian sites.
The Pakistani information ministry said the military operation “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban” and other militants.
The ministry also said the “false and misleading” claims that a hospital had been struck were intended to cover “illegitimate support for cross-border terrorism“.
Tensions between the two countries have been spiralling for months.
Border clashes escalated in October, leaving dozens of civilians dead.
Although the violence briefly subsided, it reignited last month when Pakistan declared it was in “open war” with Afghanistan.
Since then, at least 75 Afghan civilians have been killed.
International efforts to calm the conflict have so far struggled to gain traction.
China said its special envoy spent a week attempting to mediate between the two sides and urging an immediate ceasefire.
However, South Asia expert Michael Kugelman told AFP that fighting had showed no signs of stopping
“The Arab Gulf nations that mediated previous rounds of Afghanistan-Pakistan talks are now bogged down by their own war,” he said.
“Other mediators, including China, have had limited success.
“Pakistan appears intent to keep hitting targets in Afghanistan, and the Taliban determined to retaliate with operations on Pakistani border posts and potentially with asymmetric tactics – from launching drones to sponsoring militant attacks in wider Pakistan.
“There are no off-ramps in sight.”
