ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday accused the government in Kabul and the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) militant group of jointly planning a Nov. 11 suicide bombing at Islamabad’s district court complex, saying the attack was orchestrated from Afghanistan and involved operatives trained and sheltered there.

The accusations came as the Afghan Taliban government said on Tuesday nine children and a woman were killed in overnight Pakistani airstrikes, vowing to respond, ratcheting up tensions between the South Asian neighbors. Pakistan’s military spokesperson denied Islamabad had struck Afghanistan, describing Kabul’s allegations as “baseless,” state broadcaster PTV reported. 

The tensions follow a surge in attacks in Pakistan that Islamabad blames on militants, particularly from the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) group, which it says are based in Afghanistan. Kabul denies this. 

Speaking to reporters in Islamabad on Tuesday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar detailed arrests, travel routes and a recorded confession by the alleged handler of this month’s attack on the district court in Islamabad’s G-11 area. He said four men were arrested by Pakistan’s Intelligence Bureau and Counter Terrorism Department within 48 hours of the bombing.

“This is clear evidence, TTA [Afghan Taliban] and TTP did this together,” Tarar said, adding that the suicide bomber and key planners had moved repeatedly between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the months before the attack.

Tarar said the bomber was an Afghan national identified as Usman Shinwari, a resident of Nangarhar in Afghanistan, who was brought to Islamabad by the main accused, Sajidullah alias Sheena, who joined the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2015 and received training at various training camps there.

Tarar also played a “video confession” of Sajidullah during the press conference in which he describes meeting Taliban commanders, receiving instructions, transporting the bomber and collecting the explosive vest: 

“All the planning was done in Kabul,” the alleged handler said on camera. 

The contents of the confession and the circumstances in which the video was recorded, including if it was made under duress, could not be independently verified. 

Tarar said the plot was ordered by TTP chief Noor Wali Mehsud and coordinated by a commander named Daadullah, who was from Pakistan’s Bajaur region but currently based in Afghanistan:

“There is no doubt that all the people involved in this, all these things have come from Afghanistan.”

Kabul has not yet responded to Tarar’s press briefing but has said in the past Pakistan’s security challenges are an internal security matter. Its accusations about the latest airstrikes came after suicide bombers targeted the headquarters of a Pakistan paramilitary force in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Monday, killing three personnel. 

Relations between the neighboring countries have been fraught since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, following the withdrawal of US-led troops. But tensions have intensified since October this year, following deadly border clashes that killed about 70 people on both sides. 

Though the fighting ended with a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkiye, talks held in Istanbul failed to produce a lasting deal. 

Separately, the Pakistan army said on Tuesday it had killed 22 militants in an operation in Bannu district near the border with Afghanistan, calling them Khawarij, a label it uses for groups like the Pakistani Taliban and those it alleges are supported by foreign agencies.