Rescue crews recover bodies from Kabul hospital airstrike blamed on Pakistan

Rescue crews are still digging bodies out of the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital Tuesday morning, after officials there said an overnight Pakistani airstrike killed at least 400 people at the facility

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Rescue crews were still digging bodies out of the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital Tuesday morning, after officials there said an overnight Pakistani airstrike killed at least 400 people at the facility.

Pakistan has denied Afghanistan’s accusation that it targeted a hospital, saying its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, did not hit any civilian sites.

The strikes late Monday night mark a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began between Afghanistan and Pakistan late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.

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 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 injured. There was no updated official death toll early Tuesday morning.

Local television stations posted footage on X showing security forces using flashlights as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building.