Pakistan has angrily rejected allegations from Afghan officials that its intelligence agency masterminded the assassination of Afghanistan's chief peace negotiator with the Taliban.
An investigative delegation established by president Hamid Karzai said evidence and a confession provided by a man involved in Burhanuddin Rabbani's killing on September 20th had revealed that the bomber was Pakistani and the assassination had been plotted in Pakistan.
"Instead of making such irresponsible statements, those in positions of authority in Kabul should seriously deliberate as to why all those Afghans who are favorably disposed toward peace and toward Pakistan are systematically being removed from the scene and killed," Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement.
"There is a need to take stock of the direction taken by Afghan Intelligence and security agencies."
Mr Rabbani's killing derailed efforts to forge dialogue with the Taliban to end the 10-year war, and raised fears of a dangerous widening of Afghanistan's ethnic rifts.
Hundreds of Afghans took to the streets of Kabul yesterday to condemn recent shelling of border areas by Pakistan's army and accuse the country's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency of involvement in Mr Rabbani's killing.
In another sign of rising Afghan frustration with Islamabad, the peace council which Rabbani headed reiterated earlier comments by Karzai that negotiations should continue, but with Pakistan, rather than the Taliban, suggesting Islamabad was directing some militants from behind the scenes.
Afghan leaders have long questioned Islamabad's promises to help bring peace to their country. Pakistani intelligence is suspected of ties to militant groups in Afghanistan, especially the Haqqani network, one of the deadliest.
Pakistan sees the group as a strategic asset, a counterweight to the growing influence of rival India in Afghanistan, analysts say.
ISI chief Lieutenant-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha told Reuters last week that Pakistan never provided a single penny or bullet to the Haqqani network.
The network's leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, told the BBC in an interview broadcast his group was not linked to the ISI.