ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani airstrike on a crowded drug rehabilitation center in Kabul killed more than 400 people earlier this week, Afghanistan’s health ministry said, amid an escalating conflict between countries that neighbor Iran.
Pakistani authorities acknowledged striking what it says were military targets in the Afghan capital but denied attacking the rehab center.
A funeral for dozens of people whose remains could not be identified drew mourners to the streets of Kabul on Wednesday. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the interior minister in Afghanistan’s Taliban government, decried the attack but warned against the impulse to seek revenge.
Pakistani officials said Wednesday they would pause strikes on Afghanistan in observance of Eid al-Fitr, the celebration that marks the end of Ramadan, at the urging of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is posing challenges for Afghanistan and Pakistan as energy prices surge and remittances come under pressure. At least 10 people were killed in clashes with security forces during anti-war protests this month outside the U.S. Consulate general in Karachi, Pakistan, authorities there said.
Pakistan, facing security threats along multiple borders, has increased its attacks in Afghanistan.
Relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan have deteriorated since U.S. forces withdrew in 2021 and the Taliban returned to Kabul. Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group that pledges loyalty to the Taliban’s leader in Afghanistan and has repeatedly attacked Pakistan. Days before the United States and Israel launched their campaign against Iran, tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan flared again into open conflict. With attention focused on Iran, Pakistan has carried out increasingly deadly strikes in Afghanistan.
Footage broadcast by Afghan television and verified by The Washington Post showed first responders carrying wounded people out of the ruins of the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital late Monday. Two hundred sixty-five people were wounded, the Afghan health ministry said; 491 survived.
Pakistani authorities called the Afghan figures propaganda. Pakistani forces, they said, attacked only military facilities Monday night.
“The addiction? The Afghan Taliban’s constant lies,” said Mosharraf Zaidi, a spokesman for Pakistan’s prime minister. “The cure? Pakistan’s counterterrorism operations.”
“No hospital, no drug rehabilitation center, and no civilian facility was targeted,” Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said. He posted a video of what he said were Pakistani strikes on “military installations in Kabul” on Monday night.
Trevor Ball, a conflict researcher for the investigative group Bellingcat, said the strikes seen in Tarar’s video could be geolocated to buildings within 400 meters of the rehab center. An overhead photo of the treatment center issued by Afghanistan’s national disaster management authority shows a wide path of wreckage that includes the buildings targeted in the video and most of the rehab center.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai told Sky News the strikes shook his house.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said “hundreds” of people were killed. “Civilians and civilian infrastructure must never be a target.”
Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, called for an investigation. “Scores” of people died, he said.
The State Department said it was aware of reports of an attack on a rehab facility, but would not confirm details. “The Pakistani people have suffered greatly at the hands of terrorists, including the Taliban, who continue to allow Afghanistan to be used as a launching pad for horrific cross-border attacks,” the department told The Washington Post in a statement Wednesday. “The United States does not condone military targeting of civilians and supports Pakistan’s right to defend itself against attacks from the Taliban, a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group.”
Nawaz Khan reported from Islamabad. Meg Kelly in Washington and Imogen Piper in London contributed to this report.
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