Apparent Pakistani Retaliation Strikes Kill Nine In Iran
Iranian authorities claim that nine people, including four children and three women, were killed by Pakistani strikes early on Thursday in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.
The Pakistani strikes appear to have been conducted as retaliation for an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps strike on Pakistan’s Balochistan province across the border. The Tuesday attack killed two children and injured three women, despite IRGC claims that it targeted the headquarters of a Baloch separatist terror group.
In a press release issued later on Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the Pakistani military’s Operation Marg Bar Sarmachar (Death to Separatists) was conducted based on “credible intelligence of impending large scale terrorist activities” by Pakistani separatists, claiming that it killed a number of terrorists.
The press release accused the Iranian government of failing to act on Pakistan’s “serious concerns” over separatist safe havens in “ungoverned spaces” inside Iran.
A separate press release by the Pakistani military claimed that it had used “killer drones”, rockets, loitering munitions and stand-off weapons in the operation, which it said targeted hideouts used by the Balochistan Liberation Army and Balochistan Liberation Front groups.
Local Iranian officials identified the children and women killed as not having been Iranian citizens in statements made to local television. According to one official, one of the locations attacked was 30 kilometers within Iranian borders, with other locations near the city of Saravan.
The apparent retaliatory strike followed Islamabad’s announcements on Wednesday that it was recalling its ambassador to Iran and asked the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan to not return as part of its protests of the Tuesday attack.
Also on Wednesday, Jaysh al-Adl, the separatist group targeted by the Tuesday IRGC attack, claimed responsibility for an attack in Iran that killed an IRGC colonel and his two bodyguards.
Following the attack, Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan said that he had phone conversations with both the Iranian and Pakistani foreign ministers. In a Thursday press conference in Jordan, he said that both nations did not seek to further escalate tensions, with both sides claiming to him that the situation was “under control”.