Hundreds Killed in Pakistani Airstrike on Kabul

On the evening of March 16, 2026, an airstrike struck the Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul at approximately 9 p.m. local time, reducing large sections of the 2,000-bed drug rehabilitation facility to burning rubble [1]. Afghanistan's Taliban government accused Pakistan of carrying out the strike, reporting at least 408 people killed and roughly 250 injured — making it the single deadliest incident in a cross-border war that has been intensifying since late February [2]. Pakistan categorically denied targeting the hospital, insisting its military conducted "precision airstrikes" against "military installations and terrorist support infrastructure" [3].

The attack represents the most devastating escalation yet in a conflict that has already displaced over 115,000 people and drawn condemnation from the United Nations [4]. It also opens a second major front of instability in a region already reeling from the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, which has sent oil prices soaring and disrupted global energy markets.

'It Was Like Doomsday'

Survivors described scenes of horror at the Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital, a sprawling facility that housed approximately 2,000 patients — many of them young men seeking treatment for drug addiction, one of Afghanistan's most acute public health crises [5].

Ahmad, a 50-year-old patient, told journalists he was the sole survivor among his 25 roommates. They had gathered in their dormitory after evening prayers when the explosions hit. "The whole place caught fire. It was like doomsday," he said, describing how he watched flames engulf his friends as they screamed for help, powerless to save them [5].

Mohammad Mian, who worked in the hospital's radiology department, recalled the terror: "Those who survived were the ones whose rooms were not destroyed and were fortunate. But the places where the bombs were dropped, everyone there was killed" [5]. He noted that many young patients lived in large shipping containers on the hospital campus — structures that offered no protection from the blasts.

Dr. Ahmad Wali Yousafzai, a health officer at the facility, described three separate explosions whose blasts "hurled some of his colleagues from one wall to another." He said the surviving staff were overwhelmed: "We were too few in number to save all of them" [5].

By the following morning, rescue crews were combing through the smoldering ruins with flashlights, extracting bodies from collapsed structures [6]. AFP reporters on the scene counted at least 30 bodies being removed, while ambulance driver Haji Fahim said he had transported at least eight bodies to the nearby Afghan-Japan hospital over a five-hour period [5]. Habibullah Kabulbai, 55, arrived searching for his brother Nawroz, who had been admitted five days earlier. "I can't find him," he wept. "We are helpless. This has not only happened to me but the whole of Afghanistan" [6].

Pakistan Denies Targeting Hospital

Pakistan's response was swift and categorical. A spokesman for Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif dismissed the hospital allegations as "baseless," while Pakistan's Ministry of Information stated that the strikes "precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban" [1][3].

Information Minister Attaullah Tarar reiterated that "no civilian population or civilian infrastructure was targeted," framing the Monday strikes as part of the ongoing Operation Ghazab Lil Haq — Pakistan's large-scale military campaign against Taliban positions in multiple Afghan provinces [7]. Pakistan has claimed the operation has killed 684 Afghan Taliban fighters since its launch in late February, a figure Afghanistan disputes [7].

Independent verification of either side's claims remains difficult. Afghanistan's Taliban government has restricted domestic media access to areas targeted by Pakistani airstrikes, and international journalists face severe constraints in both countries [4]. The conflicting accounts — a pattern throughout this three-week-old conflict — have made it challenging for outside observers to establish ground truth.

The Road to 'Open War'

The hospital strike did not emerge from a vacuum. It is the bloodiest chapter in a conflict that has been building for years and escalated dramatically in February 2026.

The immediate triggers were a series of devastating terrorist attacks inside Pakistan. On February 6, a suicide bombing at a Shia mosque in Islamabad killed 36 people, claimed by the Islamic State's Pakistan Province. Ten days later, a Pakistani Taliban (TTP) attack on a military checkpoint in Bajaur killed 11 soldiers and a child. These attacks came on top of a week-long rampage by the Balochistan Liberation Army across Balochistan province [8][9].

Pakistan blamed Afghanistan's Taliban government for harboring the TTP and other militant groups, a charge Kabul has consistently denied. On February 21-22, Pakistan launched airstrikes in Afghanistan's Nangarhar, Paktika, and Khost provinces, claiming to target militant camps. The Taliban condemned the strikes as sovereignty violations and reported civilian casualties [9].

The situation spiraled rapidly. By February 27, after Afghan forces allegedly attacked Pakistani military positions along the Durand Line — the contested 2,611-kilometer border that Afghanistan has never formally recognized — Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif declared that his country's "patience has run out" and that the two nations were now in "open war" [8][10]. Pakistan launched Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, expanding airstrikes to major Afghan cities including Kabul, Kandahar, and targets in Paktia, Nangarhar, Khost, and Paktika provinces [7].

The roots of the conflict run far deeper than any single terrorist attack. The TTP, while a separate organization from Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, shares "deep ideological, social and linguistic ties" with them [8]. Analysts note that the Afghan Taliban appears unwilling to seriously crack down on the TTP, partly due to historical affiliations and fears of fighters defecting to rival groups like ISIS-K. Pakistan, meanwhile, has grown increasingly frustrated as TTP attacks surged in its border provinces despite repeated diplomatic appeals to Kabul.

The Durand Line itself remains a fundamental point of contention. Afghanistan views the British-era boundary as "an imposed colonial demarcation that illegitimately divided ethnic Pashtun areas" between the two countries [8]. Pakistan's efforts to fence the border have been a persistent source of friction, and the line has become the primary theater of ground combat in the current war.

Humanitarian Toll

The three-week-old conflict has exacted a severe humanitarian cost on a population already enduring decades of war and one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.

Before the hospital strike, the United Nations reported that 56 Afghan civilians — including 24 children and six women — had been killed, with 129 injured [4]. The hospital attack alone more than septupled the total reported civilian death toll.

An estimated 115,000 people in Afghanistan and approximately 3,000 in Pakistan have been displaced by the fighting [11]. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has documented strikes hitting civilian infrastructure, including over 20 healthcare facilities across the country [4].

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk described the conflict as piling "misery on misery" for Afghans, pleading for both sides to pursue dialogue [12]. Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, said he was "dismayed" by reports of civilian deaths from Pakistani airstrikes and urged compliance with international law, including the protection of civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals [1].

The UN Security Council adopted a unanimous resolution calling on Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to strengthen counter-terrorism efforts, though notably the resolution did not name Pakistan specifically [1][3].

India's permanent UN representative condemned Pakistan's strikes during the month of Ramadan, adding a layer of geopolitical complexity to an already fraught situation [1].

Source: FRED / U.S. Energy Information Administration

Data as of Mar 9, 2026CSV

A Region on Fire

The Pakistan-Afghanistan war is unfolding against the backdrop of an already destabilized region. The U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran, now in its third week, has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz, sent oil prices surging from around $67 per barrel in late February to nearly $95 by early March, and displaced millions across the Middle East.

The simultaneity of these conflicts is not coincidental in its effects. Global energy markets, already strained by the Iran crisis, face additional uncertainty from instability in a region that borders both Iran and China's Belt and Road corridors. Pakistan's economy, already fragile after years of IMF bailouts and political instability, is being further battered by the costs of military operations and trade disruptions along the Afghan border.

For Afghanistan, the war compounds an already catastrophic situation. The country remains under comprehensive international sanctions targeting the Taliban government, and humanitarian organizations — already struggling to deliver aid — now face active combat zones across multiple provinces. The hospital strike in particular has raised alarm among health organizations about the viability of medical operations in conflict zones.

What Comes Next

An October 2025 ceasefire, mediated by Qatar and Turkey, had briefly contained the simmering tensions [8]. But that framework has been shattered, and no credible diplomatic channel currently exists to de-escalate the crisis.

Pakistan shows no signs of scaling back Operation Ghazab Lil Haq, with strikes continuing in Kabul and Nangarhar even after the hospital attack [7]. The Taliban, for its part, has claimed its forces have killed over 150 Pakistani soldiers and vowed "large-scale offensive operations" along the Durand Line [10].

The Chatham House think tank has warned that without urgent de-escalation, the conflict risks becoming entrenched, with devastating consequences for both countries and the wider region [13]. But with both sides locked into narratives of self-defense — Pakistan framing the war as a counter-terrorism necessity, Afghanistan denouncing it as unprovoked aggression against a sovereign nation — the path to negotiation remains unclear.

The bodies still being pulled from the ruins of the Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital are a grim testament to the human cost of that impasse. Whether the sheer scale of the tragedy will shock the parties toward restraint — or merely harden their resolve — may determine the trajectory of South Asia's most dangerous conflict in a generation.