Pakistan and Afghanistan agreed to pause military operations against each other beginning Wednesday night for the Islamic festival of Eid al-Fitr — a temporary halt to hostilities that does nothing to resolve a furious dispute over a Monday airstrike that Kabul says killed more than 400 people at a drug rehabilitation centre.
The surprise truce, announced within hours of each other by both governments, came at the request of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said in a post on X. The pause took effect at midnight on Wednesday and will last until midnight on March 23.
“Pakistan offers this gesture in good faith and in keeping with the Islamic norms,” Tarar said, warning that operations would resume with renewed intensity if there is any cross-border attack, drone strike, or “terrorist incident” inside Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban government followed with a similar announcement, with spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid saying Kabul was calling a temporary halt to defensive operations for Eid at the request of the same three Islamic nations. Afghanistan would respond to any aggression in the event of any threat, he added.
The Attack That Sparked the Latest Fury
The truce comes two days after an airstrike hit a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul — the deadliest single incident in months of escalating cross-border violence.
Afghan authorities say the strike killed more than 400 people and wounded 265 others, striking just as residents and staff at the centre were praying on Monday night. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) offered a significantly lower toll on Wednesday, reporting 143 killed and 119 wounded.
Independent verification of casualty figures has not been possible. Both sides have regularly claimed to have inflicted heavy damage on the other in the ongoing conflict.
UNAMA said that before the rehab centre incident, 76 people were killed and 213 were injured in Afghanistan, the majority of them women and children.
What Was the Target?
The fundamental question fueling the dispute: What, exactly, was hit?
Afghan authorities say the attack clearly targeted a well-known rehabilitation centre — a former NATO military base named Camp Phoenix that had been converted into a civilian facility about a decade ago.
Pakistan rejects that characterization entirely. The Pakistani military said in a statement Wednesday that the facility was a “military terrorist ammunition and equipment storage site.” It claimed secondary detonations visible after the strikes indicated the presence of large ammunition depots there.
The military further alleged that the site was being used to store drones, equipment to launch drones, and “reportedly also housed SCUD missiles of the Soviet era.”
“We also know that the site was used for training of suicide bombers,” the statement said, adding that intelligence confirmed it was used as a drug rehab centre only “a few years ago”.
Pakistan provided no evidence to support its accusations. There was no immediate response from the Afghan Taliban.
The Human Toll
Images from Wednesday’s mass funeral in Kabul told a different story. Dozens of wooden coffins were carried to a rainswept hillside grave as mourners wept over the dead.
Jacopo Caridi, country director for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Afghanistan, said it was challenging to establish the truth without a third-party investigation — but offered his own assessment.
“There are enough elements to confirm that this was a civilian facility that was hit,” Caridi said, adding that military infrastructure may have been located nearby. “They might have missed the objective, but the result is that civilians were killed or injured”.
Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh and an Afghanistan expert, said it was plausible for civilian facilities to be located within or near former military sites in Kabul — a legacy of decades of conflict that has left military infrastructure scattered across the capital.
A Conflict With Deep Roots
The conflict between the former allies-turned-foes began last year after Pakistan accused Afghanistan of sheltering and backing militants carrying out attacks across Pakistan — a charge the Afghan Taliban government denies.
The violence had ebbed amid efforts by friendly countries, including China, to mediate, but flared again last month when Pakistan began directly targeting the Afghan Taliban, not just the Pakistani Taliban militants Islamabad says are hiding in the country.
Tarar said 707 people have been killed so far in Pakistan’s action against Afghanistan.
The dispute over the Kabul strike now rages against the backdrop of heightened regional instability due to the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran — a wider war that has already drawn in multiple nations and threatens to further destabilize an already fractured region.
What Comes Next
The Eid truce offers a temporary pause — a chance to bury the dead, to observe the holiday, to breathe.
But both sides have made clear that when the festival ends, so does the ceasefire. Pakistan warns of operations resuming “with renewed intensity.” Afghanistan vows to respond to any aggression.
For the families of the 400 dead — whether that number is accurate or not — the truce changes nothing. Their loved ones are gone. The bombs that killed them came from across the border. And when Eid ends, the fighting will resume.
Dozens of wooden coffins, a rainswept grave, and a dispute that neither side will concede — that is what remains as Pakistan and Afghanistan pause, for a few days, to mark the end of Ramadan.
