Additional Coverage:
KABUL, Afghanistan – Rescuers are continuing to pull bodies from the wreckage of a Kabul drug rehabilitation hospital following an overnight airstrike. Officials report that over 400 people were killed in the attack on Tuesday, marking a significant escalation in the ongoing three-week conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Pakistan has vehemently denied Afghanistan’s claims that its strikes targeted the hospital. Pakistani officials maintain their operations, which also included strikes in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, were aimed at military facilities, dismissing the high casualty figures as propaganda.
The injured and deceased were transported to various local hospitals, where distraught crowds gathered, desperately searching for loved ones. Independent confirmation of the death toll has not yet been possible.
The conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been characterized by repeated cross-border exchanges of fire and airstrikes within Afghanistan, with international calls for a ceasefire largely unheeded. The recent overnight strike occurred just hours after Afghan officials reported a border clash that claimed four lives in Afghanistan.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring militants, particularly the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization closely allied with the Afghan Taliban. These militants are frequently blamed for attacks within Pakistan. Kabul, however, denies these accusations.
In a late-night post on X, Afghanistan’s deputy government spokesperson, Hamdullah Fitrat, stated that the airstrike hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, a 2,000-bed facility, around 9 p.m. local time, causing extensive damage. Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani reported at least 408 fatalities and 265 injuries.
Local television footage captured security forces using flashlights to carry casualties, while firefighters battled blazes amidst the hospital’s ruins.
The Omid hospital, located near Kabul’s international airport and adjacent to the former NATO military base Camp Phoenix, was renamed and expanded approximately a year ago as part of government efforts to combat drug addiction. The former Camp Phoenix, once a training ground for the Afghan National Army by U.S. forces, was taken over by Afghanistan’s new authorities after the Taliban seized control in 2021. The current use of the former base site remains unclear.
An Associated Press reporter near the strike location reported hearing a military jet followed by a powerful explosion at the time of the incident.
Pakistan’s Information Ministry, also via an X post, claimed its military “precisely targeted” Camp Phoenix, which it identified as a “military terrorist ammunition and equipment storage site.” The ministry asserted that the hospital was “multiple kilometers” away from the former camp, accusing Afghan officials of fabricating information. Google Maps shows another location, east of Kabul city, also labeled Camp Phoenix.
“Another important question also lingers, as to why would an alleged drug rehabilitation facility be colocated with lethal ammunition storage site in a military camp? This also remains unanswered,” the Information Ministry’s post read.
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors,” and stating that those killed were “innocent civilians and addicts.” He further added, “We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity.”
Rescue worker Allah Mohammad Farooq described the grim scene: “When we arrived here, everyone was buried under the rubble. We then used a crane to pull them out. Most of the people were dead, and many are still trapped under the debris.”
Haji Najibullah, sitting outside the site, tearfully recounted hearing about the bombing, noting his son and other relatives were undergoing treatment at the hospital. “We have no information about who is alive and who is buried under the rubble,” he said. “Only God knows who may have survived and who may be injured.”
Richard Bennet, the U.N. human rights expert in Afghanistan, expressed his dismay on X regarding “fresh reports of #Pakistan airstrikes in #Afghanistan and resulting civilian casualties.” He offered condolences and urged all parties to “de-escalate, exercise maximum restraint & respect international law, including the protection of civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals.”
In Islamabad, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar dismissed Afghanistan’s accusations of targeting a hospital as “entirely baseless.” Tarar stated that the “Afghan Taliban regime is peddling yet another falsehood,” and that Pakistan had exclusively engaged military and militant targets. He clarified that Pakistan’s strikes targeted facilities “being directly or indirectly used to plan, facilitate, shelter, train or abet terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.”
Tarar affirmed that the overnight strikes in Kabul and Nangarhar province were “precise, deliberate and professional,” denying any civilian infrastructure was hit. “No hospital, no drug rehabilitation center, and no civilian facility was targeted,” he said.
This recent escalation, the most severe between the two nations, began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes that Kabul claimed killed civilians. These clashes shattered a Qatari-brokered ceasefire from October, which followed earlier fighting that resulted in dozens of casualties among soldiers, civilians, and suspected militants.
Pakistan has declared itself in “open war” with Afghanistan, a situation that has alarmed the international community, especially given the continued presence and resurgence efforts of other militant organizations like al-Qaida and the Islamic State group in the region.
Last Saturday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stated that Afghanistan’s Taliban administration crossed a “red line” by deploying drones that injured several civilians in Pakistan the previous week.