Afghan authorities on Tuesday accused Pakistani forces of carrying out an airstrike in southeastern Khost province that killed at least nine children and a woman, sharply escalating tensions as a fragile ceasefire between the neighbours hangs in the balance.

Taliban administration spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the strike hit a civilian home in Khost’s Gurbuz district around midnight (19:30 GMT).

“The Pakistani invading forces bombed the house of a local civilian resident, Waliat Khan, son of Qazi Mir,” Mujahid wrote on X. “As a result, nine children [five boys and four girls] and one woman were martyred, and his house was destroyed.”

Mujahid added that additional airstrikes in northeastern Kunar and eastern Paktika provinces left at least four civilians wounded. There was no immediate response from Pakistan.

The incident comes just a day after a suicide bombing targeted the headquarters of Pakistan’s paramilitary Federal Constabulary in Peshawar. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a splinter faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility.

State broadcaster PTV reported that the attackers were Afghan nationals, while President Asif Zardari blamed the “foreign-backed Fitna al-Khawarij” — Islamabad’s term for TTP fighters it says operate from Afghan soil.

Earlier this month, another suicide attack in Islamabad killed at least 12 people. Pakistan said the attack was carried out by a TTP-linked cell “guided at every step by the… high command based in Afghanistan.”

Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have deteriorated steadily since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, worsening further after deadly border clashes in October that left around 70 people dead on both sides.

A ceasefire brokered by Qatar and Turkey halted the fighting, but subsequent talks in Istanbul failed to deliver a durable agreement, with Pakistan pressing Kabul to curb TTP militants — a demand that remains a major sticking point.

Pakistan accuses the Afghan Taliban of sheltering militants involved in a surge of cross-border attacks. Kabul denies the allegations and counters that Pakistan harbours groups hostile to Afghanistan and violates its sovereignty.