Rescue crews dig bodies out of the ruins of a Kabul hospital hit in an airstrike blamed on Pakistan

Rescue crews were still digging bodies out of the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital on Tuesday morning, after officials there said that an overnight Pakistani airstrike killed at least 400 people in a dramatic escalation of a conflict between the two neighbors that is now in its third week.Pakistan has denied Afghanistan’s accusation that it targeted a hospital, insisting that its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, were aimed at military facilities.It dismissed Afghanistan’s claims of hundreds of casualties from a strike on a hospital as being propaganda.The casualties were taken to several hospitals in the area.

It wasn’t immediately possible to independently confirm the death toll.The conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan began in late February, and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan.International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.

The strike came hours after Afghan officials said that the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan.Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of providing safe haven for militants who frequently carry out attacks inside Pakistan, especially to the Pakistani Taliban, a group separate but closely allied with the Afghan Taliban who took over Afghanistan in 2021 in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops.The group, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States.

Kabul denies the charge.In a late-night post on X, Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said the airstrike had hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility in Kabul, at about 9 p.m.local time.He said that large sections of the facility had been destroyed, and that the death toll had “so far” reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported wounded.

There was no updated official death toll ea...