Pakistan air strikes in an eastern border province of Afghanistan killed 46 people, the Taliban government spokesman told AFP on Wednesday, as the defence ministry vowed retaliation.

The strikes were the latest spike in hostilities on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with border tensions between the two countries escalating since the Taliban government seized power in 2021.

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said late Tuesday that Pakistan bombarded four areas in the Barmal district of eastern Paktika province.

“The total number of dead is 46, most of whom were children and women,” he said, adding that six more people were wounded, mostly children.

Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said those killed in the strikes were refugees.

A defence ministry statement late Tuesday condemned the strikes, calling them “barbaric” and a “clear aggression”.

“The Islamic Emirate will not leave this cowardly act unanswered, but rather considers the defence of its territory and sovereignty to be its inalienable right,” the statement said, using the Taliban authorities’ name for the government.

A senior Pakistani security official speaking on condition of anonymity said the strikes targeted “terrorist hideouts inside Afghanistan, using a mix of jets and drones”.

Skirmishes on the frontier followed deadly air strikes in March by Pakistan’s military in the border regions of Afghanistan, which Taliban authorities said killed eight civilians.

A Barmal resident, Maleel, told AFP Tuesday’s strikes killed 18 members of one family.

“The bombardment hit two or three houses, in one house, 18 people were killed, the whole family lost their lives,” he said.

He said a strike killed three people in another house and wounded several others, who were taken to hospital.

Taliban officials said the dead were local residents and people who had fled over the Pakistan border from Waziristan.

North Waziristan, which borders Paktika, has historically been a hive of militancy and was the target of a long-running Pakistani military offensive and US drone strikes during the post-9/11 occupation of Afghanistan.

The strike comes after the Pakistani Taliban – who are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and share a common ideology with their Afghan counterparts – last week claimed a raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan, which Pakistani intelligence officials said killed 16 soldiers.

Pakistan has been battling a resurgence of militant violence in its western border regions since the Taliban’s 2021 return to power in Afghanistan.

Islamabad has accused Kabul’s Taliban authorities of harbouring militant fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity.

Kabul has denied the allegations and pledged to evict foreign militant groups from Afghan soil.

But a UN Security Council report in July estimated up to 6,500 TTP fighters are based there – and said “the Taliban do not conceive of TTP as a terrorist group”.

The spike in attacks has soured Islamabad-Kabul relations. Security was cited as one reason for Pakistan’s campaign last year to evict hundreds of thousands of undocumented Afghan migrants.

There has been no official comment from Pakistani authorities on the latest strike in Afghan territory.

Earlier Tuesday, high-level Taliban officials were meeting with Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan who was on a visit to Kabul.