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Associated Press

Pakistan announced on Wednesday a pause in strikes against Afghanistan, saying the decision was made ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr at the request of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey.
In a statement, Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar said the pause in strikes on “terrorists and their support infrastructure in Afghanistan” would take effect at midnight on Wednesday and remain in place until midnight on Monday.
“Pakistan offers this gesture in good faith and in keeping with the Islamic norms,” he said.
However, he said, “in case of any cross-border attack, drone attack or any terrorist incident inside Pakistan”, the operations would immediately resume with renewed intensity.

Afghanistan held a mass funeral on Wednesday for some of the victims of what Kabul said was a Pakistani air strike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in its capital earlier this week.
The strike 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.
Pakistan rejects 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.
The ⁠site ⁠in Kabul hit by a Pakistani air strike this week was used for storing drones and military-grade ordnance, and to train suicide bombers, the Pakistani military said on Wednesday.
In an interview in Islamabad on Wednesday, Tarar said Pakistan had “only targeted terrorist infrastructure”.


“We have just gone after the Afghan Taliban regime, their military set-ups, their terrorist infrastructure, and all the set-ups which are supporting or promoting terrorists,” he said.
The conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as air strikes inside Afghanistan since it began in late February, despite international calls for a ceasefire.
Islamabad 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 the country in 2021, in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops. Kabul denies the charge.
Intense fire
The 2,000-bed Omid hospital was hit at around 9pm on Monday. It had been renamed and expanded in size 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 near a former Nato military base, Camp Phoenix, where US forces used to train the Afghan National Army. It was not 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.
Tarar 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 was technical equipment, there were arms there in that depot”.
At the graveside, interior minister Sirajuddin Haqqani said they were innocent victims targeted by “criminals”.
“Today is a sad day. I offer my condolences to Afghanistan, especially to the families of the martyrs,” he told mourners on Wednesday.

“We will take revenge,” he added, warning those behind Monday night’s bombing: “We are not weak and helpless. You will see the consequences of your crimes.”
But Haqqani, who until last year had a US$10-million American bounty on his head, also suggested that talks were the government’s preferred option to halt the fighting.
“We do not want war but the situation has come to this,” he said. “So, we are trying to solve the problems through diplomacy.”
Additional reporting by Reuters, Agence France-Presse


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An Afghan man walks next to the site where a drug rehabilitation centre was destroyed in an air strike in Kabul on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

Pakistan’s information minister Attaullah Tarar speaks during an interview in Islamabad on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Taliban security personnel stand by as bulldozers dig graves for victims of Monday’s air strike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Sirajuddin Haqqani (centre) arrives to attend a mass funeral held for victims of a Pakistani air strike on a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul on Wednesday. Photo: AFP 

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A Taliban security guard rides an armed vehicle on the outskirts of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on February 28. Photo: AFP

Stockbrokers monitor share prices at the Pakistan Stock Exchange in Karachi on Monday. Photo: AFP

A Pakistani soldier stands guard in Chaman, Balochistan province, near Afghans arrested for illegally crossing the border on February 24. Photo: EPA

Pakistani activists wave their country’s national flag and shout anti-Afghan slogans during a protest in Karachi on February 28. Photo: AFP

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Pakistani security officers stand outside the US consulate in Karachi on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs Ishaq Dar addresses the UN Security Council in New York on February 18. Photo: Reuters

Shiite Muslims hurl back tear gas shell fired by police as they march towards the US embassy during a rally in Islamabad on Sunday to condemn the killing of Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Photo: AP

An Afghan man stands next to a damaged car in Kandahar on Saturday following airstrikes, amid the conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Photo: Reuters

Pakistan-Taliban showdown risks becoming a protracted war of attrition

A Taliban fighter holds his weapon beside a Humvee after exchanges of fire between Pakistani and Afghan forces in Momand Dara district of Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

A Taliban security member keeps watch from atop an armoured Humvee near the Torkham border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan in Nangarhar province on Saturday. Photo: AFP

People gather around the coffin of a Pakistani soldier killed in cross-border clashes with Afghan forces during funeral prayers in Lakki Marwat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday. Photo: AP

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People gather around the coffin of an army soldier, killed in the border clashes between Pakistani and Afghan forces, during a funeral prayer in a village in Lakki Marwat, a district of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on February 28. Photo: AP

Taliban’s only hope for peace with Pakistan is renouncing terrorism

People survey a house that was damaged in the cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan, in the Takhta-e-Pul district of Kandahar province, Afghanistan, on February 28. Photo: EPA

A Taliban fighter stands guard at a checkpoint near the Torkham border crossing with Pakistan, in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, on March 1. Photo: EPA

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The temporary ceasefire comes after Monday’s hospital strike, the deadliest in an escalating conflict between the two neighbours


The temporary ceasefire comes after Monday’s hospital strike, the deadliest in an escalating conflict between the two neighbours.


Pakistan to pause Afghan strikes for Eid at request of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The temporary ceasefire comes after Monday’s hospital strike, the deadliest in an escalating conflict between the two neighbours

The temporary ceasefire comes after Monday’s hospital strike, the deadliest in an escalating conflict between the two neighbours