Taliban accuses Pakistan of killing 10 – including nine children – in strikes on Afghanistan | Pakistan
A day after a suicide attack on a security facility in Peshawar, Pakistan, 10 people, including nine children, were killed in Pakistani attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, a Taliban government spokesman said.
“Pakistani occupying forces bombed the house of a local civilian… As a result, nine children (five boys and four girls) and one woman were martyred in Khost province,” Zabihullah Mujahid said in his statement to X.
He added that 4 more civilians were injured in the air strikes targeting the Kunar and Potika border regions.
Pakistani government officials and the military did not comment on the raids.
The bombing followed a suicide attack targeting the headquarters of Pakistan’s paramilitary Federal Police Corps in Peshawar, killing three officers and wounding 11 others.
No group claimed responsibility, but state broadcaster PTV reported that the attackers were Afghan nationals, and Pakistani President Asif Zardari blamed “foreign-backed Fitna al-Havarij”, Islamabad’s term for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, whom it accuses of operating on Afghan soil.
This month, another suicide attack in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad killed 12 people, and this attack was claimed by a group of the Pakistani Taliban who share the same ideology with the Afghan Taliban.
Islamabad blamed the capital attack on a militant cell “directed at every step by the high command in Afghanistan.”
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been strained since the Taliban returned to power in 2021 and worsened following deadly border clashes in October that left nearly 70 people dead on both sides.
The fighting ended with a ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Türkiye, but talks in Istanbul failed to reach a permanent agreement as security issues, particularly Pakistan’s demand that Kabul’s TTP fighters be stopped, proved a sticking point.
Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring militants behind increased attacks, including the TTP, which has been waging a bloody campaign against Pakistan for years.
Kabul denies the accusation and counters that Pakistan hosts groups hostile to Afghanistan and does not respect its sovereignty.
