Sawt Falasteen - Afghanistan accuses Pakistan of killing civilians in Kabul strike

Loud explosions rocked the Afghan capital at 9:00 pm local time (1630 GMT), with plumes of smoke visible from the Shahr-e-Naw and Wazir Akbar Khan areas of the city.

Anti-aircraft defences swung into action and panicked locals, many of them out and about after breaking their daily Ramadan fast, ran for cover, AFP reporters said.

In one building, a panicked mother ran outside, calling for her son to come back in as the explosion rocked the neighbourhood. Other locals scurried to take cover in basements.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on X that the Pakistani military had "once again violated Afghan territory", calling the strikes "a crime" and an "act of inhumanity".

The Pakistani military has struck Kabul several times in recent weeks, as part of a conflict sparked by claims that the Taliban government has harboured extremists who have carried out attacks across the border.

But Mujahid said the latest strikes hit a drug treatment centre, killing a number of civilians.

The sound of anti-aircraft guns in Kabul stopped at about 10:00 pm and sirens could be heard.

Mujahid did not give a toll and an AFP team at the centre in question saw a large police contingent and dozens of ambulances.

Pakistan dismissed the claim as "misreporting" and said instead that it had carried out precision strikes on "military installations and support infrastructure".

Locations were also targeted in the eastern border province of Nangarhar, the information ministry said. Both "were being used against innocent Pakistani civilians", it added.

"Pakistan's targeting is precise and carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage is inflicted," a statement read.

- 'No off-ramps' -

Long-running cross-border clashes between the two sides escalated in October last year, leaving dozens dead, but after subsiding they resumed last month, with Pakistan describing the conflict as "open war".

On Friday, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan confirmed the deaths of at least 75 civilians in the country since clashes with Pakistan intensified on February 26.

Both sides maintain they do not target civilians. There is no immediate independent verification of claims from both sides, as airstrikes and bombardments are reported in remote regions of the border.

In total, 18 civilians have been killed in Afghanistan in the past week as a result of cross-border clashes between the two sides, according to the Afghan authorities.

China said on Monday that its special envoy has spent a week mediating between the two sides and had urged an immediate ceasefire.

But South Asia expert Michael Kugelman, from the Atlantic Council international affairs think-tank, told AFP the fighting showed little sign of ending soon.

"Diplomatic steps taken in previous months have failed, and the Arab Gulf nations that mediated previous rounds of Afghanistan-Pakistan talks are now bogged down by their own war. Other mediators, including China, have had limited success," he said.

"Pakistan appears intent to keep hitting targets in Afghanistan, and the Taliban determined to retaliate with operations on Pakistani border posts and potentially with asymmetric tactics -- from launching drones to sponsoring militant attacks in wider Pakistan.

"There are no off-ramps in sight."

Cross-border trade has ground to a halt and about 115,000 people have been forced to leave their homes due to the conflict, according to the UN refugee agency.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Sunday that it has started delivering "life-saving food" to over 20,000 displaced Afghan families and warned that "further instability will push millions into hunger".

Just over 100 people forced to leave their homes gathered from dawn on Monday at a WFP distribution site in Paktia province, on Afghanistan's eastern border, to receive fortified biscuits, an AFP photographer said.

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B.Mahmoud--SF-PST