Pakistan Halts Afghanistan Strikes After 143 Killed in Kabul Hospital Bombing

Pakistan will stop bombing Afghanistan for five days starting at midnight Wednesday, after three Muslim allies pressed both governments to honour Eid al-Fitr with a pause in fighting that has already killed 143 patients in a Kabul drug-treatment hospital.

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted the cease-fire schedule on X: operations against “terrorists and their support infrastructure” freeze from 00:00 Wednesday until 24:00 Monday. The Taliban’s Zabihullah Mujahid issued a matching statement minutes later, promising to “suspend military operations” for the same window and warning that “any threat” would bring a “decisive” reply.

The truce comes two days after a Pakistani airstrike flattened the Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility in the capital. The United Nations counted 143 bodies, making Monday’s hit the single deadliest incident of the six-week-old border war. Afghanistan held mass funerals on Wednesday; Pakistan insists it struck only “military locations” and calls the casualty figures enemy propaganda.

Fighting erupted on 27 February when Taliban units attacked Pakistani posts along the 2,640-kilometre Durand Line, according to Kabul. Islamabad answered with waves of air raids that reached deep into Afghan provinces, including Kabul. The Taliban says its ground assault was retaliation for earlier Pakistani strikes; Pakistan says it is preventing militants from using Afghan soil to launch cross-border attacks.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, said on Tuesday that shelling and air raids have damaged six Afghan health centres in under three weeks, straining an already-collapsed system. The agency warned that displaced civilians face rising disease risks with Ramadan ending and Eid travel about to peak.

Tarar’s post spelled out the condition: “any cross-border attack, drone attack or any terrorist incident inside Pakistan” ends the pause instantly and triggers heavier strikes. Mujahid issued an identical caveat from the Taliban side, signalling that neither army has agreed to limits on future force. Diplomats in Islamabad expect both capitals to keep aircraft loaded and missile batteries hot throughout the holiday.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey presented identical requests to Islamabad and Kabul on Monday, officials in both governments confirmed. The three states framed the cease-fire as an Islamic norm rather than a political concession, giving each side room to claim it acted out of religious duty, not battlefield pressure. Pakistani officials say the proposal reached Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s desk within hours of the hospital bombing.

Villages along the Chaman-Spin Boldak crossing will know first if the truce holds; traders there say even a single mortar round during Eid prayers would shatter the deal and likely bring retaliatory fire before the holiday ends. For now, families separated by the border plan to meet at frontier gates on Friday, counting on five days of quiet to exchange sweets and news instead of casualty lists.