Afghanistan: 'Four hundred dead in raid on medical centre'. Pakistan denies

The ruling Taliban government in Afghanistan claims that 'at least 400 people were killed and 250 wounded in a Pakistani air raid on a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul'. Agencies reported this, adding that "Pakistan rejected the claim calling it false and misleading" and said it had "accurately hit military installations and infrastructure supporting terrorism". Hamdullah Fitrat, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban, on the other hand, states that an attack took place on Monday night targeting the Omid State Hospital and that 'a large part' of the facility 'was destroyed'.

Pakistan's Information Minister, Attaullah Tarar, specified that Pakistani armed forces conducted 'precision air raids' overnight as part of an ongoing operation against facilities allegedly used by militant groups in Kabul and Nangarhar. In a statement published in X, Tarar said the attacks destroyed "technical support infrastructure and ammunition depots" in two locations in Kabul, adding that visible secondary explosions indicated the presence of large ammunition depots

Tarar also stated that four other sites in Nangarhar province were hit, damaging logistics centres, ammunition depots and technical infrastructure allegedly used by militant groups, including the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and ethnic Baloch separatists. The Pakistani Ministry of Information stated that in the operation conducted from 26 February to 15 March, security forces killed 684 Afghan Taliban, wounded more than 900, destroyed 252 militant positions and captured and demolished 44 others.

The ministry also stated that 229 tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery systems were destroyed and that 73 militant or support positions across Afghanistan were hit by air raids. Earlier, however, the deputy spokesman of the Afghan Taliban government, Hamdullah Fitrat, had accused Pakistan of carrying out an air raid at around 9pm yesterday (local time) against the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul, a 2,000-bed drug rehabilitation facility.

Afp journalists on the scene testify that they counted "at least 30 bodies" pulled from the rubble of the stricken drug rehabilitation centre in the Afghan capital Kabul and saw paramedics administering aid to dozens of injured in the chaos and flames. 'At first light, chairs, blankets, pieces of hospital beds and human remains could be seen among the blackened ruins of the building,' the French agency reported.