Pakistan launches retaliatory air strikes inside Iran
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch says ââPakistan considers people of Iran as our friends.ââ 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.
Iranâs strike and Pakistanâs retaliatory attack deepen worries about instability across the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas started on October 7, with Iranâs 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.
âA number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation,â Pakistanâs foreign ministry said, describing it as a âseries of highly co-ordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideoutsâ.
âPakistan fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,â the ministry added in its statement.
âThe sole objective of todayâs act was in pursuit of Pakistanâs own security and national interest, which is paramount and cannot be compromised.â
Tehran has asked Islamabad for an explanation about the strikes, Iranâs Tasnim news agency said, citing an unidentified official.
Pakistanâs charge dâaffaires, its most senior diplomat in Tehran, has been summoned, Iranian media said.
Pakistanâs 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.
âOur forces have conducted strikes to target Baloch militants inside Iran,â said the official in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
âThe targeted militants belong to BLF,â he said, referring to the Baloch Liberation Front, which seeks independence for Pakistanâs 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 âblatant breachâ 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 Iranâs Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Pakistanâs Kakar meeting at Davos this week, before the Iranian strikes on Pakistan.
Khwaja Asif, Pakistanâs defence minister until August, said the action was retaliatory.
âA measured response has been given and it was important,â he told Geo TV.
âThere should be ongoing efforts on the side that this doesnât escalate.â
Both targeted militant groups operate in an area that includes Pakistanâs southwestern province of Balochistan and Iranâs 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.
