Pakistan pausing strikes against Afghanistan for end of Ramadan

Pakistan announced a pause in strikes against Afghanistan on Wednesday, saying the decision was made ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr at the request of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.

The announcement came two days after Afghan officials said an airstrike by Pakistan hit a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul and killed hundreds of people. Authorities in Kabul held a mass funeral Wednesday for some of the victims of the strike.

Pakistan has rejected Afghanistan’s accusation that it targeted the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, insisting its strikes in Kabul and eastern Afghanistan on Monday had been against military facilities. It has dismissed Afghan claims of hundreds of casualties as propaganda.

In a statement, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the pause in strikes would take effect at midnight Wednesday local time and remain in place until midnight Monday.

“Pakistan offers this gesture in good faith and in keeping with the Islamic norms,” he said. However, he added, “in case of any cross-border attack, drone attack or any terrorist incident inside Pakistan,” the operations will immediately resume with renewed intensity.

Eid al-Fitr marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Monday’s attack in Kabul was the deadliest in an escalating conflict between the two neighbours, now in its third week. Afghan officials have put the death toll at 408 people, with 265 wounded. The toll could not be independently verified.

Dozens of caskets

The conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has seen repeated cross-border clashes and airstrikes inside Afghanistan, including several in the capital, since it began in late February, despite international calls for a ceasefire.

Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of providing a safe haven for militants who carry out attacks inside Pakistan, especially for the Pakistani Taliban. The group is 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. Kabul denies the charge.

Bulldozers dug pits in a Kabul cemetery ahead of Wednesday’s mass funeral, which Health Ministry spokesman Sharafat Zaman said was for more than 50 people whose remains could not be identified.

Light rain fell as ambulances lined up outside the cemetery and began unloading dozens of plain wooden caskets. Some contained the remains of more than one person, Zaman said.

The 2,000-bed Omid hospital was hit at around 9 p.m. local time on Monday. It had been renamed and expanded roughly a year ago from a previously existing treatment facility as part of the Taliban government’s efforts to stamp out a significant drug addiction problem in the country.

Afghanistan’s vast poppy fields have been the source of much of the world’s heroin, and that, in combination with decades of conflict and widespread poverty, has fuelled drug addiction that the country’s current rulers have vowed to combat.

The site, near Kabul’s international airport, is adjacent to a former NATO military base, Camp Phoenix, where U.S. forces used to train the Afghan army. It wasn’t immediately clear what was now housed at the site. The strike caused an intense fire at the hospitals, with footage from local television showing rescue crews combing through the wreckage with flashlights late into Monday night as firefighters struggled to extinguish the blaze.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Islamabad earlier Wednesday, Tarar said Pakistan had “only targeted terrorist infrastructure.”

“We have just gone after the Afghan Taliban regime, their military setups, their terrorist infrastructure, and all the setups which are supporting or promoting terrorists.”

He said Pakistan’s strikes “have been very precise and these strikes were carried out in an ammunition depot in Kabul. In the aftermath of which, we saw fumes and flames in the atmosphere in Kabul.”

He said the subsequent loss of life, which he did not quantify, occurred “because there was ammunition, there were technical equipment, there were arms there in that depot.”

Civilians and addicts

Bodies were still being pulled from the smouldering remains of the hospital on Tuesday morning.

Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors.” He said those killed were “innocent civilians and addicts.”

The fighting, the most severe between the two neighbours, began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes. The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar in October, after earlier fighting killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants.

Pakistan declared last month it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan. The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.