ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has strongly rejected Amnesty International’s recent report on civilian casualties in Kabul, Afghanistan, adding that the attacks were based on credible intelligence and only targeted a military drone workshop and weapons cache inside Camp Phoenix.
Pakistan said that Amnesty’s report is based solely on the claims and one-sided narrative of the Taliban regime. Pakistani security officials and experts have rejected Amnesty’s findings as baseless and based on insufficient evidence. Experts say that after such an attack on a 2,000-bed hospital with thousands of patients, doctors and staff, thousands of videos and eyewitness accounts should have surfaced on social media and the media, but the lack of such visual or audio evidence even four months after the incident raises serious questions about the report’s authenticity.
Pakistan also raised serious objections to the methodology and impartiality of the report’s preparation. Officials point out that the Taliban has imposed restrictions on the entry of international observers into Afghanistan, and it is against journalistic and investigative principles for Amnesty to draw a final conclusion based on only a few photos, limited videos and interviews with just 11 staff members.
In addition, Pakistani officials have expressed concerns about the structure of Amnesty International’s South Asia office and possible bias in its employees. Pakistan added that the report has been released at a time when Amnesty has been consistently silent on cross-border terrorism against Pakistan from Afghan soil, which proves that the report has been prepared for political purposes and ignoring Pakistan’s security concerns.
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