Pakistan launches retaliatory air strikes inside Iran
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch says ‘‘Pakistan considers people of Iran as our friends.’’ Photo: Anadolu via Getty
Pakistan has conducted strikes inside Iran targeting separatist Baloch militants, the Pakistani foreign ministry says, two days after Tehran said it had attacked the bases of another group within Pakistani territory.
The neighbours have had rocky relations in the past but the strikes are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years.
Iran’s strike and Pakistan’s retaliatory attack deepen worries about instability across the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas started on October 7, with Iran’s allies also entering the fray from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
Iranian media said several missiles hit a village in the Sistan-Baluchestan province that borders Pakistan, killing at least nine people.
Earlier reports said three women and four children were killed, all non-Iranians.
“A number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said, describing it as a “series of highly co-ordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts”.
“Pakistan fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the ministry added in its statement.
“The sole objective of today’s act was in pursuit of Pakistan’s own security and national interest, which is paramount and cannot be compromised.”
Tehran has asked Islamabad for an explanation about the strikes, Iran’s Tasnim news agency said, citing an unidentified official.
Pakistan’s charge d’affaires, its most senior diplomat in Tehran, has been summoned, Iranian media said.
Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar will cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and return home, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters the strikes were carried out by military aircraft.
“Our forces have conducted strikes to target Baloch militants inside Iran,” said the official in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
“The targeted militants belong to BLF,” he said, referring to the Baloch Liberation Front, which seeks independence for Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
Iran said on Tuesday it had hit Israel-linked militant bases inside Pakistan.
Both targeted groups are ethnically Baloch, but it was not clear if they co-operate.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan said civilians were hit and two children killed, warning of consequences for which Tehran would be responsible.
Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Iran on Wednesday in protest against what it called a “blatant breach” of its sovereignty.
Iran had been flexing its muscles in the region, even before its cross-border incursion into Pakistan.
It launched strikes on Syria against what Tehran said were Islamic State sites and Iraq, where it said it had struck an Israeli espionage centre.
Baghdad recalled its ambassador from Tehran.
The neighbours had appeared to be improving ties, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Pakistan’s Kakar meeting at Davos this week, before the Iranian strikes on Pakistan.
Khwaja Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister until August, said the action was retaliatory.
“A measured response has been given and it was important,” he told Geo TV.
“There should be ongoing efforts on the side that this doesn’t escalate.”
Both targeted militant groups operate in an area that includes Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan and Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province.
Both are restive, mineral-rich and largely underdeveloped.
The BLF, which Islamabad targeted inside Iran, is waging an armed insurgency against the Pakistani state.
