ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Islamabad will ask the supreme leader of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan to mediate with the Pakistani Taliban after an attack on a mosque in Peshawar Monday that killed 84 people, officials said Saturday.

Since the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul, Pakistan has witnessed a sharp escalation of attacks in the border areas with Afghanistan, where the ruggedness of the place allows the militants not to be spotted.

Police attributed Monday's attack to Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a more extreme faction of the Pakistani Taliban, which denied responsibility for the attack.

The Pakistani Taliban have common goals with the Afghan Taliban, led by Hebatullah Akhundzada, who runs the country from Kandahar (south), the stronghold of the hardline Islamist movement.

Faisal Karim Kundy, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif's special adviser, said Saturday that delegations will be sent to Tehran and Kabul "to ask them to ensure that terrorists do not use their lands against Pakistan."

A Pakistani police official in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where Monday's attack took place, told AFP that the Kabul delegation would meet "very high-level personalities".

"When we talk about a very high-ranking figure, we mean ... the Afghan leader Hebatullah Akhundzada," added the official, who preferred to remain anonymous.

Afghan officials did not immediately respond to AFP's requests for comment.

On Wednesday, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mottaki warned that Pakistan should not "blame others".

During the two-decade American intervention in Afghanistan, Islamabad was accused of secretly supporting the Afghan Taliban, despite its military alliance with the United States.

But since the return of the Taliban to power in Kabul in 2021, relations have deteriorated, especially after the return of the Pakistani Taliban.

Founded by Pakistani jihadists allied with al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban have killed tens of thousands of Pakistani civilians and security forces in less than a decade. A military operation launched in 2014 drove the militants towards the mountainous border with Afghanistan.

A report issued by the UN Security Council in May 2022 indicated that the Pakistani Taliban, which attempted to assassinate Pakistani Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, is one of the most foreign militant groups in Afghanistan "benefiting from the return of the Taliban to power."