Pakistani Air Strike Destroys Kabul Rehab Center, Killing Hundreds

A Pakistani air strike devastated an overcrowded drug rehabilitation center in Kabul on Monday night, killing at least 100 people and possibly as many as 400, in what appears to be the deadliest single attack in the escalating conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The strike hit the Omid Addiction Treatment Hospital at approximately 9:00 p.m. local time, just as patients were breaking their daily Ramadan fast. The facility — a former U.S. and NATO military training compound known as Camp Phoenix, converted into a rehab center around 2016 — was severely overcrowded, housing as many as 5,000 patients in a space designed for 2,000. Mohammad Shafee, a patient in his twenties, told the BBC he was in the kitchen helping serve dinner when the bombs fell. "When I returned later, I found most of our colleagues and people in the dining room hit. Only five of us survived," he said.

Dr. Maiwand Hoshmand, a physician at the facility, said jets struck three separate sections of the center while patients had just finished eating and some had gathered for congregational prayer. A security guard described nearby Taliban military units firing on the aircraft before it dropped bombs, igniting a fire that engulfed the complex. "The whole place caught fire. It was like doomsday," said Ahmad, a 50-year-old patient, who told Reuters he watched friends burn in the flames.

At least 100 bodies have been received at the Kabul Forensic Medicine Department, though the Taliban government believes the true death toll is approximately 400 — a figure that remains unconfirmed. Many remains are severely disfigured, complicating identification efforts. On Tuesday, families crowded the facility's gates in search of information. One woman told the BBC she had been searching since dawn for her son, who had spent four months in treatment. Another said her husband of seven months at the center had simply vanished.

Pakistan has denied deliberately targeting the hospital, calling Afghan accusations "entirely baseless" and maintaining its forces struck only "military installations and terrorist support infrastructure." Islamabad has long accused Kabul of harboring militants responsible for attacks inside Pakistan — charges the Taliban deny. The United Nations, which is urging restraint from both sides, reports that at least six health facilities in Afghanistan have been impacted by hostilities since late February. The two nations had agreed to a fragile ceasefire in October, but months of escalating cross-border clashes have shattered that accord, with Pakistan's defense minister recently declaring the country in "open war" with Afghanistan.