A Pakistani airstrike that hit a drug treatment center in the Afghan capital Kabul in March, killing hundreds of civilians, should be investigated as a possible war crime, human rights organization Amnesty International says.
In a social media post on Wednesday, the rights group said it had “found no evidence to support” Pakistan’s claims that the Omid drug rehabilitation center was being used for military purposes or to store ammunition and weapons.
Afghanistan has said the strike on March 16 killed about 400 civilians in the facility. Pakistan has disputed the death toll, and has insisted it was targeting a military facility.
The United Nations’ mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, said in May it had independently verified at least 269 civilian deaths and 122 injuries, but that “the real figure may be significantly higher.” Afghan authorities held at least two mass funerals for victims of the strike in March.
The 2,000-bed Omid center had been operating as a drug addiction treatment facility for about a decade. It was located near Kabul’s international airport in what was once part of a NATO military base.
Amnesty’s investigation analyzed photos and videos
Amnesty International published an investigation into the strike on Tuesday, saying it had analyzed and verified more than 60 photos and videos, including videos released by Pakistan’s military, reviewed more than 30 satellite images of the area, and also conducted interviews.
It said none of the videos “allow the identification of conclusive evidence of weapons, ammunition or other explosive goods stored in the area. The footage does not show secondary explosions immediately following the strikes, which would constitute evidence of a possible ammunition storage.”
The strike came during months of fighting
The strike on the drug treatment facility came amid months of cross-border fire between Pakistan and Afghanistan that began last year and escalated in February, with Pakistan declaring it was in “open war” with Afghanistan.
UNAMA says it documented a total of 372 civilians killed and nearly 400 injured in Afghanistan between January 1 and the end of March alone due to cross-border violence. Several rounds of internationally mediated peace talks have failed to produce a lasting truce.
In late June, a cross-border attack by Pakistan killed more than two dozen civilians in three provinces of eastern Afghanistan, with UNAMA confirming at least 28 civilians killed.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring militants who carry out deadly attacks inside Pakistan, especially the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. The group is separate from, but allied with, the Afghan Taliban, which has ruled Afghanistan since it seized power in the country in 2021 amid the chaotic withdrawal of U.S.-led troops. Kabul denies the charge.
Amnesty says the strike violated international humanitarian law
In its report, Amnesty International said Pakistan’s strike on the Omid treatment center “violated the special protection afforded to healthcare facilities under international humanitarian law …, as well (as) the principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality designed to protect civilians.”
Isabelle Lassee, Amnesty International’s Acting Regional Director for South Asia, said the attack “constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law – possibly amounting to a war crime. Given the widely available information that the site had been used as a medical facility for more than a decade, this reflects a major failure in military planning by Pakistan that led to a significant loss of civilian life.”
In the hours after the attack, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar posted on X that the Pakistani military had “carried out precision airstrikes” targeting military installations and that “technical support infrastructure and ammunition storage facilities” at two locations in Kabul were destroyed.
Amnesty International said it had contacted Pakistan’s foreign ministry on July 9 requesting details about whether any investigation had been launched into the strike, and for any information substantiating the claim that the target had been a weapons and ammunition store. It said it had not received a response by the time its report was published.
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Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece
