On the night of March 16, Pakistani forces launched a massive attack on Afghanistan, hitting a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, killing over 400 people, the Taliban government has stated. The authorities in Afghanistan have informed that most of the deceased, over 400 of them, were patients undergoing treatment. More than 250 have been injured.
Visuals from Kabul overnight of Pakistani attack on drug rehab center. Authorities say 400 people have been killed in the strikes, the worst such mass casualties in Afghanistan in years. pic.twitter.com/oIKxzzJb7Y
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) March 17, 2026
Deputy Taliban spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat identified the target as the 2,000-bed Omid facility, struck around 9 p.m. local time just after Ramadan iftar, triggering widespread panic and fires all over the place.
The Afghan Health Ministry has stated that the victims were innocent civilians and recovering addicts, with rescue teams still searching the wreckage for survivors. Officials condemned the attack as a violation of international norms, potentially amounting to a war crime amid the escalating 2026 Afghanistan-Pakistan conflict.
Pakistan, on the other hand, has claimed that they hit only military installations and terrorist infrastructure in Kabul and Nangarhar provinces with precision strikes, denying that any civilian or medical targets were hit. Islamabad labelled Taliban casualty claims as propaganda.
The incident marks one of the deadliest single events in the ongoing border clashes, which intensified in late February with mutual airstrikes and ground raids.
