‘This Barbarism Will Be Answered’: Taliban Vows Retaliation After Pakistan Strike Kills 400-Plus At Kabul Addiction Hospital
New Delhi: Taliban chief spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has warned that Pakistan’s alleged airstrike on a Kabul rehabilitation hospital “will not go unanswered,” vowing a firm response even as rescue operations continue at the site.
Speaking to TOI over phone from Kabul on Tuesday, Mujahid put the death toll at over 400, with approximately 250 injured being treated at hospitals across the Afghan capital. The target was the Omar Addiction Treatment Hospital a civilian medical facility housing adult male patients undergoing long-term drug rehabilitation.
Videos circulating online showed massive flames engulfing the building, with thick black smoke rising into the night sky and large sections of the structure visibly destroyed.
“Right now, we are busy with rescue, identifying the dead and searching for the injured. It is a matter of deep sorrow for us. But this crime and inhumane brutality will not go unanswered,” Mujahid said, making clear that retaliation would follow once immediate relief efforts concluded.
The Taliban has described the incident as a deliberate Pakistani airstrike on a civilian medical facility. Islamabad has denied targeting civilians, maintaining that its strikes were directed at “terrorist infrastructure.” Mujahid dismissed the denial outright, accusing Pakistan of attempting to control the narrative.
“The entire facility was set on fire. The hospital, and everything inside, was consumed by it,” he said. “There was no military presence at this location — it was a civilian medical facility treating vulnerable people.”
He described the patients as innocent civilians people “who had been saved from the clutches of death” at the deaddiction centre and accused Pakistan of deliberately framing the attack to avoid accountability.
“Pakistan will offer justifications for their crimes and their oppression. They will try their best to deny responsibility and attempt to justify this through propaganda, but such brutality cannot be excused,” Mujahid said. “This barbarism will be appropriately responded to, Inshallah,” he added, repeating the warning in Urdu.
Drawing a sharp comparison, the spokesperson charged: “This is like Israel in Afghanistan — they attack, commit oppression to ignite regional fires and achieve evil goals through terrorism.” He said the Taliban would raise the incident with international human rights organisations and called on the global community to take note.
“Such actions risk destabilising the region. Pakistan’s aim and purpose is to ignite conflict and to use terrorism to advance their sinister objectives. We want this incident to be raised globally,” Mujahid said.
The strike comes against the backdrop of weeks of escalating cross-border tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, including drone attacks and retaliatory operations along the Durand Line. Islamabad has repeatedly accused Kabul of sheltering Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants a charge the Taliban categorically denies.
The hospital attack is being described as one of the deadliest single incidents in Afghanistan in recent memory, marking a dangerous new threshold in the deteriorating relationship between the two neighbouring countries.