ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s military spokesperson Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry has denied claims by the Afghan Taliban that Islamabad carried out strikes in Afghanistan on Tuesday, Pakistani state broadcaster reported amid surging tensions between the neighbors once again. 

Chaudhry’s statement comes in response to claims by the Afghan Taliban government on Tuesday, who blamed Pakistan for carrying out airstrikes in Afghanistan overnight. Afghan officials said nine children and a woman were killed in the attack, vowing to retaliate. 

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.

“DG ISPR refutes claims of Afghan Taliban of conducting strikes inside Afghanistan,” state broadcaster Pakistan TV Digital posted on social media platform X. 

“Pakistan Army has not attacked civilians inside Afghanistan.”

PAKISTAN BLAMES KABUL FOR ISLAMABAD BLAST

Earlier on Tuesday, Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar accused Kabul and the TTP of jointly planning a Nov. 11 suicide bombing at an Islamabad district court complex. 

The Pakistani minister said the attack was orchestrated from Afghanistan and involved operatives trained and sheltered there. 

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. 

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. 

Pakistani officials have vowed that Islamabad will go after militants in Afghanistan that launch attacks against it. Kabul has vowed it will not tolerate such attacks and will retaliate.