UN revises Kabul rehab strike toll as Pakistan denies targeting civilians

Disputed toll and competing accounts of strike deepen crisis between Islamabad and Kabul.The United Nations has recorded 143 deaths in an air strike on a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul, significantly lower than the figure offered by Afghanistan’s Taliban government.The attack on Kabul’s Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital on Monday night has sharpened a bitter dispute between Pakistan and Afghanistan with the Taliban putting the casualties at more than 400 people killed and about 265 wounded.Recommended Stories list of 2 itemslist 1 of 2Pakistan ‘strongly’ rejects claim it struck Kabul hospitallist 2 of 2Do Taliban’s drone attacks expose a chink in Pakistan’s armour?end of listThe UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan provided its figure to the Reuters news agency on Wednesday.The gap between the two counts underscores the difficulty of verifying casualty figures in the conflict as competing claims frequently come from Kabul and Islamabad. The latest wave of violence between the two countries began late last month.Afghanistan’s Taliban administration has blamed Pakistan for the attack on the drug rehabilitation centre, and Pakistan has denied carrying it out.Hamdullah Fitrat, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban administration, said the strike hit the hospital, a 2,000-bed facility, destroying large sections of the building and triggering fires that rescue teams worked through the night to contain.Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused Pakistan of deliberately hitting civilian infrastructure and called the assault a “crime against humanity”. Mujahid said those killed and wounded were patients undergoing addiction treatment at the time of the strike.Pakistan’s information minister, Attaullah Tarar, denied the allegation in an interview with Al Jazeera.