{"id":343425,"date":"2026-03-17T07:35:21","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/343425\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T07:35:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:35:21","slug":"afghanistan-says-400-killed-in-strike-by-pakistan-on-kabul-hospital-afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/343425\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan says 400 killed in strike by Pakistan on Kabul hospital | Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds were feared dead after a strike on a hospital treating drug users in the Afghan capital of Kabul, which officials from Afghanistan<\/a> blamed on the Pakistani military.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan\u2019s deputy government spokesperson Hamdullah Fitrat said the death toll had \u201cso far\u201d reached 400 people, while about 250 people had been reported injured. He said most of those killed and wounded were patients undergoing treatment at the facility.<\/p>\n

Pakistan<\/a> rejected the claim as false and misleading and said it \u201cprecisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure\u201d on Monday night, dismissing allegations it had hit a civilian target.<\/p>\n

Sharafat Zaman, the Taliban\u2019s health ministry spokesperson, said there were about 3,000 patients in the state-run Omid hospital at the time of the strike. Local television stations posted footage of firefighters struggling to extinguish flames among the ruins of a building.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole place caught fire. It was like doomsday,\u201d said Ahmad, 50, a security guard at the hospital. Of the 25 people staying in the hospital\u2019s staff dormitory, he was the only one to survive.<\/p>\n

The strikes were reported to begin around 9pm on Monday night. Omid Stanikzai, 31, a security guard at the drug treatment centre, told AFP the assault began with the firing of anti-aircraft guns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were military units all around us,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen these military units fired on the jet, the jet dropped bombs and a fire broke out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witnesses reported severe damage to the building, with sections collapsing after the strike. On Tuesday morning, only blackened walls and piles of debris remained while rescue teams searched the rubble for survivors.<\/p>\n

Ambulance driver Haji Fahim said he had arrived at the hospital to find \u201ceverything was burning, people were burning\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly in the morning they called me again and told me to come back because there are still bodies under the rubble,\u201d he told Reuters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were inside the wards when the explosion happened,\u201d said Yousaf Rahim, a patient. \u201cMy bed was in the corner, and I suffered injuries to my leg and thigh. It was a horrific scene. Patients fell from their beds, screaming and running as fire and smoke filled the wards and rooms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThick smoke and dust spread throughout the hospital,\u201d he added. \u201cMany people lay on the ground. Dozens died instantly, and the critically injured were pleading for help. I didn\u2019t know what to do. I stepped over bodies and managed to escape outside.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dejan Panic, Afghan director of the Italian NGO Emergency, said it had received three bodies after the strike on Monday night and was treating 27 wounded.<\/p>\n

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said he was \u201cdismayed\u201d by reports of the air strikes and civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge parties to de-escalate, exercise maximum restraint and respect international law, including the protection of civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The alleged attack came hours after Afghan officials said the two sides had exchanged fire along their common border, killing four people in Afghanistan, as deadly fighting between the neighbouring countries continued to worsen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is the third time that Pakistan<\/a> has targeted Kabul with missile strikes in recent weeks. In a post on X, Pakistan\u2019s ministry of information said Monday night\u2019s strikes \u201cprecisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure including technical equipment storage and ammunition storage of Afghan Taliban\u201d as well as Afghanistan-based Pakistani militants in Kabul.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis misreporting of facts as drug rehabilitation facility seeks to stir sentiments, covering illegitimate support to cross-border terrorism,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

A man walks through the rubble of a rehabilitation hospital destroyed in what the Taliban said was a Pakistani airstrike in Kabul. Photograph: Sayed Hassib\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Islamabad has described the situation with Afghanistan as an \u201copen war\u201d. The fighting began in late February<\/a> after Afghanistan launched cross-border attacks in response to Pakistani airstrikes inside Afghanistan. The clashes disrupted a ceasefire brokered by Qatar in October.<\/p>\n

The conflict is the worst to break out between the former allies. Relations began to fray over the Afghan Taliban\u2019s alleged role in giving a safe haven and sponsorship to radical militants, particularly the Pakistan Taliban, that have been responsible for a surge in deadly terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Afghanistan\u2019s Taliban government have denied any involvement in cross-border terrorism in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

China has attempted to play a mediating role in the conflict. Last week, they dispatched a special envoy to the region to try to ease tensions and bring the two parties back to the negotiating table, but without success.<\/p>\n

The deadly fighting also continued along the volatile border areas. Afghan officials said four people, including two children, were killed and 10 other people were wounded in south-eastern Afghanistan in an exchange of fire on Monday.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Pakistan said a mortar fired from Afghanistan hit a house in north-western Bajaur district, killing four members of a family and wounding two others, including a five-year-old.<\/p>\n

Haroon Janjua and agencies contributed additional reporting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds were feared dead after a strike on a hospital treating drug users in the Afghan capital of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-343425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}