Dozens killed, possibly many more, in Pakistani airstrike on Kabul.

By SAFIULLAH PADSHAH and ELIAN PELTIER

A Pakistani airstrike on a drug rehabilitation center killed dozens of people in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, on Monday night, in the deadliest single attack of an escalating conflict between the two neighbors.

There were at least 75 bodies in body bags or coffins in the backs of ambulances that shuttled back and forth throughout the night and Tuesday morning. An initial assessment by a United Nations agency at the site said that the death toll could be much higher, noting that its observers found the “complete destruction” of one part of the facility, which housed about 180 adolescents, with “no survivors reported.”

Pakistan claimed responsibility for the strike, one of six that it carried out on Afghanistan on Monday, but, in a post on social platform X, Pakistan’s information minister, Ataullah Tarar, said the target had been an ammunition depot. Monday’s strike was the third time Pakistan hit the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

A Taliban spokesperson warned Tuesday that Afghanistan would retaliate, a step that could lead to all-out war between two countries, whose populations share deep cultural bonds.

Pakistan, which once supported the Taliban, accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring an Islamic terrorist group responsible for hundreds of attacks in Pakistan in recent years. Armed groups operate on both sides of their 1,640-mile border.

Officials from the two countries met regularly until October, when the two militaries clashed along that border. In late February, Pakistan declared “open war” against the Taliban government in Afghanistan. Since then, Pakistan has launched dozens of airstrikes on Afghanistan’s two largest cities and in border areas.

Though Pakistan’s ultimate objective remains unclear, it has pummeled Afghan military infrastructure with strikes that have also hit or damaged civilian homes, refugee camps and health facilities, according to the United Nations.