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At least nine children and a woman died after Pakistani forces bombed a house in the country's southeastern Khost province, according to Afghan authorities - a claim dismissed by Pakistan's military, Al Jazeera reported on Tuesday.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban administration, said on Tuesday that the attack took place at midnight (local time) in the district of Gurbuz. The latest attack risks triggering renewed hostilities and comes as a fragile ceasefire between the two nations hangs by a thread, with each side blaming the other for the impasse in the negotiations. "The Pakistani invading forces bombed the house of a local civilian resident, Waliat Khan, son of Qazi Mir," Mujahid wrote in a post on X. "As a result, nine children [five boys and four girls] and one woman were martyred, and his house was destroyed," he added. Other air strikes took place in northeastern Kunar and eastern Paktika provinces, Mujahid said, wounding at least four civilians, as per Al Jazeera. Later on Tuesday, Pakistani military spokesperson Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry denied the Afghan government's claim and said Pakistan does not target and kill civilians, he said The denial came after Mujahid said Afghanistan would "respond appropriately at the right time". "The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns this violation and crime and reiterates that defending its airspace, territory, and people is its legitimate right," he said in a statement on social media, as per Al Jazeera. The bombardment in Afghanistan comes a day after a suicide attack that targeted the headquarters of Pakistan's paramilitary Federal Constabulary force in Peshawar, Al Jazeera reported. The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar - which is a splinter group of the Pakistan Taliban, known by the acronym TTP - claimed responsibility for that attack. State broadcaster PTV reported the attackers were Afghan nationals, and President Asif Zardari blamed the "foreign-backed Fitna al-Khawarij" - Islamabad's term for the TTP fighters it accuses of operating from Afghan soil. Another suicide attack in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, earlier this month killed at least 12 people and was also claimed by a faction of the Pakistan Taliban. Pakistan blamed a cell that was "guided at every step by the ... high command based in Afghanistan" for the attack on the capital. (ANI)
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