At least 400 killed, around 250 injured in Pakistani airstrike on Kabul hospital

Public Lokpal
March 17, 2026

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At least 400 killed, around 250 injured in Pakistani airstrike on Kabul hospital

KABUL: Afghanistan accused Pakistan of killing at least 400 people in an airstrike on a drug rehabilitation hospital in the Afghan capital late Monday. It marked a dramatic escalation of a conflict that began late last month and has seen repeated cross-border clashes as well as airstrikes inside Afghanistan. International calls for a ceasefire have gone unheeded.

Pakistan dismissed the accusation that it had hit a hospital, saying its strikes, which were also conducted in eastern Afghanistan, did not hit any civilian sites.

Afghanistan's deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat, in a post on X, said the airstrike had hit the hospital in Kabul at about 9 p.m. local time, destroying large sections of the 2,000-bed facility. He said the death toll had "so far" reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured.

Local television stations posted footage on X showing security forces using flashlights as they carried out casualties while firefighters struggled to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building. Fitrat said rescue teams were working to control the fire and recover the bodies.

The strike came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as the deadliest fighting between the neighbors in years entered a third week.

Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid condemned the strike on X, accusing Pakistan of "targeting hospitals and civilian sites to perpetrate horrors." In a post before the death toll rose into the hundreds, he said those killed and injured were patients at the hospital.

"We strongly condemn this crime and consider such an act to be against all accepted principles and a crime against humanity," he posted.

AP