ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Wednesday rejected allegations that it supported fighters entering Afghanistan after a Taliban minister warned its military and intelligence services against testing Afghans’ patience amid renewed tensions between the neighbors.

Afghanistan’s defense ministry alleged that fighters, including Daesh members, crossed from Pakistan with Islamabad’s support. It said its forces killed 41 fighters and captured 62 in the northeastern province of Nuristan’s Kamdesh district between Sunday and Tuesday. The casualty figures and allegations of Pakistani involvement could not be independently confirmed.

The accusations add to a dispute over militant activity that has driven repeated clashes between the neighbors. Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities of sheltering militants who attack its territory, a charge Kabul denies.

“The latest allegations by so called Minister for Borders and other mouthpieces of the Taliban regime seeking to attribute the fighting in Nuristan to Pakistan are self rhetorical lies to divert attention from serious internal oppression, dissent and instability faced by the terror sponsoring regime,” Pakistan’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said in a post on X.

The statement followed remarks by Noorullah Noori, the Taliban’s minister for borders and tribal affairs, who warned Pakistan’s military and intelligence services and urged them to learn from the experience of foreign powers that had fought in Afghanistan.

“You should not test the patience and endurance of Afghans,” Noori said, urging armed opponents of Taliban rule to abandon fighting and return to Afghanistan.

Islamabad had already rejected the Nuristan allegations on Sept. 27, specifically denying that its security forces or intelligence agencies recruited or trained former Afghan security personnel or facilitated Daesh or other militant groups operating in Afghanistan.

In that earlier statement, Pakistan said no independently verifiable evidence had been presented to substantiate its involvement.

The exchange comes after Pakistan launched airstrikes in Afghanistan last week, saying it targeted militant hideouts in retaliation for drone attacks. Kabul denied launching the drones and said those killed in the strikes were civilians.

At the center of the longstanding dispute is the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an armed group separate from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. Islamabad accuses Kabul of providing sanctuary to the group, which attacks Pakistani security forces. The Afghan government rejects the charge.