Samira Muhammadi hopes an international investigation can “extinguish” her pain after a Pakistani bombing killed her son and hundreds of other Afghans in the capital Kabul last month.

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The March 16 attack hit a drug treatment centre and killed 411 people, according to Afghan officials.

A United Nations source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said they had verified at least 250 killed, with more still missing.

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“There should be investigations on this… Like me, many mothers lost their sons, many women lost their husbands, and many sisters lost their brothers,” Ms. Muhammadi, 43, said at her home, where she scrolled through photos of her eldest son.

Afghanistan and Pakistan have been locked in an escalating conflict over claims from Islamabad that Kabul is harbouring militants responsible for cross-border attacks, which the Taliban government denies.

Pakistan has maintained it struck a military installation and did not respond to AFP questions about a possible probe into the deadly Kabul bombing.

AFP journalists at the scene in the hours after the attack saw dozens of bodies, including some that had been torn apart and burned.

The force of the blast made it difficult to identify some of the victims, the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian NGO, said shortly after visiting the site.

Ms. Muhammadi’s 20-year-old son, Aref Khan, had become addicted to methamphetamine while working at a slaughterhouse in Iran alongside his mother.

“His coworkers told him the drug would help him stay awake,” she said.

The family returned to Afghanistan a few months ago and tried to build a life in Kabul, with Khan working as a day labourer while Ms. Muhammadi found employment as a domestic cleaner.

But Afghan authorities had her son admitted to the “Camp Omid” rehabilitation centre in eastern Kabul to deal with his addiction.

“I sat with him and recorded a video of him, and he was having his food,” recounted Muhammadi, who had brought her son supplies just hours before the attack.

“Usually, when there is a war, the military places are targeted or hit, so why did they (Pakistan) hit the hospital?” she said.

Little chance of prosecutions

Seventeen international humanitarian NGOs, including War Child U.K., condemned the bombing, noting that hospitals must not be attacked.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights have called for an independent investigation.

The latter said those responsible should be “held to account in line with international standards”.

The Taliban government told AFP that it has given media, diplomats and NGOs access to the site and has “shared the evidence”.

Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on Afghanistan, told AFP: “The initial responsibility actually falls on the alleged perpetrator of human rights violations, which is Pakistan.”

Kenneth Roth, a visiting professor at Princeton University in the United States, said he “would hope that Pakistan would want to know what went wrong” after “many innocent people died”.

States are generally reluctant to question themselves, but “even the Pentagon investigates why it struck and killed so many children in a school in Iran”, said Mr. Roth, a longtime former Human Rights Watch executive director.

Several victims’ relatives said they would have more confidence in an investigation from international institutions.

The UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has a mandate to investigate the impact of the conflict on civilians in the country and, therefore, the bombing.

“This process can take some time, especially in mass casualty events such as this one, and is ongoing,” the agency told AFP, adding that it relies on sources including witnesses and doctors, as well as examinations of affected sites.

If it was found to be “an intentional or reckless attack on civilians, this attack could clearly lead to criminal charges”, Mr. Roth told AFP.

While UNAMA does not have the power to press charges, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has jurisdiction over war crimes committed in Afghanistan, and can pursue even nationals from non-member states. But it tends to look at patterns rather than individual incidents.

“So even though there was one very unfortunate alleged crime, I don’t think it would prosecute that without a pattern of misconduct,” Mr. Roth said, referring to the ICC.

No one has been convicted internationally for recent strikes on health facilities in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan or Myanmar.

“The lack of prosecutions encourages these war crimes,” said Mr. Roth.

In Kabul, Ms. Muhammadi remained determined to seek justice despite the uphill struggle.

To “investigate why a 20-year-old, who had been taken to the hospital for treatment, was killed and burnt,” she said. “If we do not ask about this now, we will probably experience the same harm again.”

Published – April 05, 2026 11:00 am IST

Pakistan launched strikes on Afghan soil late Friday (October 17, 2025), killing at least 10 people and breaking a ceasefire that had brought two days of calm to the border, officials told AFP.

The 48-hour truce had paused nearly a week of bloody border clashes that killed dozens of troops and civilians on both sides.

“Pakistan has broken the ceasefire and bombed three locations in Paktika” province, a senior Taliban official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Afghanistan will retaliate.”

Ten civilians were killed and 12 others wounded in the Pakistani strikes, a provincial hospital official told AFP on condition of anonymity, adding that two children were among the dead.

The cross-border violence had escalated dramatically from Saturday, days after explosions rocked the Afghan capital Kabul, just as the Taliban’s foreign minister began an unprecedented visit to India.

The Taliban then launched an offensive along parts of its southern border with Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to vow a strong response of its own.

When the truce began at 1300 GMT on Wednesday, Islamabad said that it was to last 48 hours, but Kabul said the ceasefire would remain in effect until Pakistan violated it.

Pakistan‘s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif accused Kabul of acting as “a proxy of India” and “plotting” against Pakistan.

“From now on, demarches will no longer be framed as appeals for peace, and delegations will not be sent to Kabul,” Asif wrote in a post on X, before news of the fresh strikes emerged.

“Wherever the source of terrorism is, it will have to pay a heavy price.”

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said its forces had been ordered not to attack unless Pakistani forces fired first.

“’If they do, then you have every right to defend your country’”, he said in an interview with the Afghan television channel Ariana, relaying the message sent to the troops.

‘Concrete and verifiable’

Security issues are at the heart of the tensions, with Pakistan accusing Afghanistan of harbouring militant groups led by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — the Pakistani Taliban — on its soil, a claim Kabul denies.

“Pakistan has repeatedly shared its concerns” related to the presence of militant groups operating from Afghan soil, Pakistani foreign office spokesman Shafqat Ali Khan said in a weekly press briefing Friday.

“Pakistan expects concrete and verifiable actions against these terrorist elements by the Taliban regime.”

Just before the truce ended, seven Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed in a suicide bombing and gun attack at a military camp in the North Waziristan district that borders Afghanistan, an administration official told AFP.

A faction of the TTP claimed responsibility for the attack.

Earlier on Friday, Afghans in the frontier town of Spin Boldak — where the fighting had been particularly intense — described scenes of normalcy.

“Everything is fine, everything is open,” Nani, 35, told AFP.

“I’m not afraid, but everyone sees things differently. Some say they’re going to send their children elsewhere as the situation isn’t good, but I don’t think anything will happen,” said Nani, who did not give a surname.

‘Mixed feelings’

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said 37 people were killed and 425 wounded on the Afghan side of the border, calling on both sides to bring a lasting end to hostilities.

An AFP correspondent in Spin Boldak said they saw hundreds of people attending funerals on Thursday, including for children whose bodies were wrapped in white shrouds.

“People have mixed feelings,” Nematullah, 42, told AFP. “They fear that the fighting will resume, but they still leave their homes and go about their business.”

Calm had also returned to Kabul, where new explosions rang out shortly before the ceasefire announcement on Wednesday.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the blasts, but Pakistani security sources said they had undertaken “precision strikes” against an armed group in the Afghan capital.

Sources in Afghanistan suggested that Pakistan was behind at least one of the blasts and that they were air strikes, but the government has not formally accused Islamabad.

Published – October 17, 2025 10:34 pm IST