Afghanistan claims late night Pakistani strike on hospital killed 400

A Pakistani airstrike hit a hospital for recovering drug users in the Afghan capital of Kabul, with Afghan sources claiming the strike killed at least 400 people and leaving more than 250 other injured. 

Attaullah Tarar, Pakistan’s minister for information, denied hitting the facility but boasted that Pakistani forces carried out “precision airstrikes” against “terrorism-sponsoring military installations” in and around Kabul. 

Hamdullah Fitrat, the Afghan government’s deputy spokesman, condemned the strikes.

“You shamelessly consider the bombing of a hospital and honor to yourself,” Fitrat said via social media. He said that hours after the strike, emergency forces were searching the rubble for survivors and still trying to put out fires.

The airstrike is the latest development in a long-simmering conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan over border issues, Afghan access to Pakistani seaports, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban conducting strikes against Pakistan from safe havens in Afghanistan. 

The conflict is not directly related to two-week-old Israeli- and U.S.-led military action against Iran, which shares long borders with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. But both are contributing to the increasing political destabilization of the region, threatening to create what analysts call an “Arc of Instability.”