Pakistan launches retaliatory strikes into Iran, nine people killed

PAKISTAN

has launched missile strikes into Iran, killing nine people, after Iran carried out strikes in Pakistan late on Tuesday. Pakistan said its strikes had hit "terrorist hideouts" in Iran's south- eastern SistanBaluchestan province.

Iran condemned the attack, which it said killed three women, two men and four children.

The reciprocal air strikes come as tensions in the Middle East are high with several overlapping crises.

Israel is fighting the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and exchanging fire with Iran- backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran- backed groups in Iraq and Syria are targeting US forces, and America and UK have struck the Iran- backed Houthis in Yemen, who have been attacking shipping.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said its strikes around the Iranian city of Saravan had come in light of "credible intelligence of impending large- scale terrorist activities" and added that it "fully respects" Iran's "sovereignty and territorial integrity".

In its own statement,

Pakistan's army said the "precision strikes" were conducted with drones, rockets and long- range missiles and targeted the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front.

Both groups are part of a decades- long struggle for greater autonomy in Balochistan, a remote region in south- western Pakistan.

Pakistan had fiercely condemned Iran's strike on Tuesday, which struck an area of Pakistan's Balochistan province near the Iranian border and which Islamabad said killed two children.

Iran insisted its strikes were aimed only at Jaish al- Adl, an ethnic Baloch Sunni Muslim group that has carried out attacks inside Iran, and not Pakistan's citizens.

Iranian state media reported yesterday that Tehran had summoned Pakistan's chargé d'affaires over the strikes. Pakistan had earlier recalled its ambassador and blocked the Iranian envoy from returning.

China, Turkey and the Taliban government in Afghanistan have all called for restraint and dialogue.