KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Rescuers recovered more bodies from the rubble of a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul on Tuesday after officials said an overnight airstrike killed more than 400 people in a dramatic escalation of a conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan that is now in its third week.
Firefighters work at the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026.
Residents and rescue workers inspect the site of a late-Monday airstrike at a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, March 17, 2026. “However, if war is imposed upon it, then with great courage it will prove its right to self defense and will defend its land and its beliefs.”
Rescuers use a crane to move debris
Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike, accusing Pakistan of “targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors.” He said those killed were “innocent civilians and addicts.”
Rescue team worker Allah Mohammad Farooq said hundreds had been killed.
In a statement, it expressed its “deepest condolences to the families of those killed” in what it said was “an airstrike carried out by Pakistan military forces (that) impacted the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital, a health care facility for the treatment of drug-addicted individuals, dozens of whom were reportedly killed and injured.”
Thameen Al-Kheetan, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for an investigation into the strike and said those responsible must be “held to account in line with international standards.”
Speaking in Geneva, Al-Kheetan said that since Afghanistan and Pakistan began fighting in late February, 289 Afghan civilians, including 104 children, had been killed or injured and tens of thousands displaced.
‘Yet another falsehood’
In Islamabad, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar rejected Afghanistan’s accusations that Pakistan had targeted a hospital as “entirely baseless.”
Tarar said Pakistan had targeted facilities “being directly or indirectly used to plan, facilitate, shelter, train or abet terrorist attacks inside Pakistan.” Strikes in Kabul and in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar were “precise, deliberate and professional,” he said, adding: “No hospital, no drug rehabilitation center, and no civilian facility was targeted.”
The fighting, the most severe between the two neighbors, began in late February after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes.
