Watch: Flames, huge smoke columns seen after Pakistan airstrike on Kabul hospital that killed 400

Videos circulating widely on social media show large fires and plumes of smoke rising into the sky following Pakistani strikes on Afghan Taliban installations in Kabul and Nangarhar Province late Monday night. The strikes were part of Operation Ghazab lil-Haq, launched by Pakistan on February 26 after what Islamabad described as “unprovoked firing” by Afghan Taliban forces across the border, according to Dawn.One of the videos shows a massive plume of fire, whereas other videos show the massive fire engulfing the surrounding areas where the strikes by Pakistani forces were carried out.Local media outlet TOLO News posted videos of strike hit hospital buildings up in flames, which according to Afghan agencies killed over 400 people and injured over 250, and rescue teams scrambled through debris.“Following airstrikes by Pakistan’s military regime on a specialist addiction treatment hospital in Kabul, more than a hundred people have been martyred and injured,” it said in the post. Security sources cited by the Dawn, said Pakistani forces targeted Taliban military infrastructure at two locations in Kabul, destroying technical support facilities and ammunition storage sites. In Nangarhar, four separate Taliban military installations were struck, along with nearby logistics, ammunition depots and technical infrastructure.

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Sources said the strikes also destroyed a drone assembly workshop, a “headquarters from where drones were sent” and weapons stockpiles in both Kabul and Nangarhar. According to them, the workshops assembled drones using components manufactured in India and Israel.Updates shared around midnight said the Pakistan Air Force continued operations in the two Afghan locations, with six targets reported to have been hit. Security officials said there were also reports that several militants were killed during the strikes.Earlier, Pakistani armed forces carried out operations in the Kurram District sector, targeting hideouts of the Afghan Taliban and Fitna al-Khawarij, a term used by Islamabad for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).“During these operations, several khawarij were killed while the rest managed to escape,” a security source told the Pakistani daily.Security sources also said Pakistani forces destroyed Afghan Taliban posts across the border in Bajaur District using guided missiles.Separately, overnight strikes were conducted earlier in Kandahar, where what officials described as technical support infrastructure and an equipment storage facility were destroyed.Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar confirmed the military action, adding that a tunnel allegedly used by militants had also been destroyed.Later, Tarar said four civilians were killed and a child injured after Afghan Taliban forces “deliberately targeted the civilian population through artillery/mortar fire from across the border” in Bajaur district.Pakistan’s information ministry also rejected claims by an Afghan Taliban spokesperson that a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul had been targeted.“The claim of this discredited so-called spokesperson of the Taliban regime is another misreporting of facts aimed at misleading public opinion,” the ministry said in a statement on X.It added: “On the night of March 16, Pakistan precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban and Fitna al Khawarij in Kabul and Nangarhar that were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians. Post-strike detonation of stored ammunition being used by the master terror proxy also fully contradicts the fake claim.”Pakistan’s foreign office also dismissed reports suggesting Islamabad had rejected mediation efforts by China to ease tensions with Afghanistan. Spokesperson Tahir Andrabi said speculation in this regard was “unwarranted”.

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