Pakistan Denies Afghan Claims of Airstrikes, Ten Civilians Killed

Kabul accused Pakistan on Tuesday of launching overnight airstrikes across three eastern provinces, saying the strikes killed 10 civilians, nine children and one woman, and wounded others. The Afghan spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid posted on X that Pakistan "bombed" a home in Khost province and struck sites in Kunar and Paktika. The allegations followed a suicide bombing in Peshawar that Pakistani authorities said killed officers and that they blamed on militants who had crossed from Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s Inter Services Public Relations office denied the allegations, saying Islamabad had not carried out strikes inside Afghanistan and that its operations are focused on militants. The Pakistani statement emphasized that counterterrorism actions are intelligence based and do not target civilians. The competing claims have sharply raised tensions at a time when both sides had engaged in recent but unsuccessful attempts at de escalation in Istanbul.

The immediate humanitarian toll is stark. Ten civilians, overwhelmingly children, makes this episode politically and emotionally fraught inside Afghanistan, where the Taliban administration remains dependent on constrained aid flows and fragile public services. Civilian casualties on this scale are likely to complicate relationships with international donors and humanitarian agencies, which already face access and funding limitations in the country.

Beyond the human cost, analysts warn of economic and market implications if the confrontation deepens. Formal trade and transit routes across the Pakistan Afghanistan border are vital for Afghan imports and for economic activity in Pakistani frontier provinces. Disruptions to border crossings and heightened insecurity could choke an already tight supply chain for fuel, food and basic goods, pushing consumer prices higher in regional border markets. Economists say market sentiment in Pakistan is sensitive to geopolitical shocks, particularly while Islamabad manages external financing needs and an international lender program. Renewed violence could weigh on the Pakistani rupee and on investor appetite for Pakistani assets, and could deter foreign firms considering cross border logistics or reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan.

The exchange also underscores longer term structural tensions that have defined relations for decades. Porous borders, militant sanctuaries and mutual distrust have produced recurrent cycles of cross border accusations, episodic military action and periods of uneasy restraint. Past episodes have shown that even short flare ups can have lasting consequences for bilateral cooperation on counterterrorism, trade facilitation and refugee management.

Diplomatically, the incident increases pressure on regional and international mediators to revive dialogue mechanisms. Failed talks in Istanbul underscored the limits of recent diplomacy, and there will be renewed calls for independent verification of the claims to prevent miscalculation. For now, the competing narratives leave residents along the border caught between security operations and civilian suffering, with economic ripple effects likely to spread well beyond the frontier if tensions persist.