Pakistan’s air force launched retaliatory airstrikes early Thursday in Iran allegedly targeting militant hideouts, an attack that killed at least nine people and further raised tensions between the neighbouring nations.
The strikes followed Iran’s Tuesday attack on Pakistani soil that killed two children in the south-western Baluchistan province.
Iran’s state media on Thursday said several explosions were heard near Saravan city close to the border of Iran and Pakistan.
A deputy governor of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, Ali Reza Marhamati, gave the casualty figures in a telephone interview, saying at least nine people were dead, including three women and four children. He did not immediately elaborate.
The strikes imperil diplomatic relations between the two neighbours, as Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks.
The attacks also raised the threat of violence spreading in a Middle East unsettled by Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Iran also staged air strikes late on Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people earlier this month. Iraq has recalled its ambassador from Iran for consultations.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry described their attack as “a series of highly co-ordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes”.
A statement said: “This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large scale terrorist activities.
“This action is a manifestation of Pakistan’s unflinching resolve to protect and defend its national security against all threats.”
Pakistan’s military described using “killer drones, rockets, loitering munitions and standoff weapons” in the attack. Stand-off weapons are missiles fired from aircraft at a distance — likely meaning Pakistan’s fighter jets did not enter Iranian airspace.
Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar, who is in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, cut his trip short to return home, foreign ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said. Foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani is also returning home from a trip to Uganda.
Several insurgent groups operate in Iran and Pakistan, including the Jaish al-Adl Sunni separatist group that was targeted by Tehran in its own strike. They all have a common goal of an independent Baluchistan for ethnic Baluch areas in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, as well as Iran’s neighbouring Sistan and Baluchestan province, have faced a low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades.
HalVash, an advocacy group for the Baluch people, shared images online that appeared to show the remains of the munitions used in the attack.
It said a number of homes had been struck in Saravan, a city in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province. It shared videos showing a mud-walled building destroyed and smoke rising over the strike immediately after.
Thursday’s development came a day after Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Tehran because of Tuesday’s strikes by Iran inside Pakistan’s south-western Baluchistan province.
Iran claimed it targeted bases for a militant Sunni separatist group. It drew strong condemnation from Pakistan, which denounced the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said it killed two children.
