On March 16, Pakistan launched two airstrikes on a compound in Kabul that it described as an ammunition depot and drone‑storage site. Survivors and investigators later identified the target as the Omid rehab center, a drug‑treatment facility that had operated on a former NATO base for a decade. The attack still became the deadliest civilian strike in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021.

Humanitarian monitors confirmed at least 269 civilian deaths and 122 injuries, while Taliban officials claimed the death toll exceeded 400. Families combed through morgue photographs hoping to recognize loved ones, many of whom were addicts forced into unmedicated withdrawal under Taliban‑run detention. The center lay merely 300 feet from a Taliban‑controlled military zone, separated only by a thin blast wall.

Pakistan’s military maintains the strikes hit legitimate targets, citing secondary detonations as proof, yet offered no evidence linking the site to weapons. The incident has inflamed already tense Pakistan‑Afghanistan relations and drawn condemnation from the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, which demand an impartial probe and accountability for the civilian carnage. Families continue to mourn amid stalled burial rites.