Pakistan, July 22 -- Amnesty International's call to investigate the strike on Kabul's Omid drug rehabilitation centre as a possible war crime raises grave questions. By examining the ruins, interviewing witnesses and studying satellite imagery, the organisation may reconstruct some of what happened after the munition struck. However, it cannot, from those sources alone, conclusively reconstruct the intelligence picture, the target's previous use or the military assessment under which the operation was authorised.

Pakistan's position remains unequivocal: neither a hospital nor a rehabilitation facility was deliberately selected for attack. The intended targets were military installations and infrastructure allegedly used to store ammunit...