Pakistan slams Iran over deadly strike
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Wednesday that Iran had carried out an airstrike on its territory that killed two children, after Tehran launched attacks in Iraq and Syria against what it called “anti-Iranian terrorist groups.”
Pakistan denounced the strike, near the two nations’ shared border on Tuesday night, as “completely unacceptable,” saying it was unprovoked.
Iran offered no immediate official comment, but its state-run Nour News Agency said the attack destroyed the Pakistani headquarters of the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice.
Formed in 2012, Jaish al-Adl is blacklisted by Iran as a terrorist group and has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.
The strike came after Iran launched missile attacks on “spy headquarters” and “terrorist” targets in Syria, and in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
The Iranian strikes add to multiple crises across the Middle East, with Israel waging a war on Hamas in Gaza and pro-Palestinian Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea.
Pakistan’s official statement did not say where the strike took place, but Pakistani media said it was near the town of Panjgur, in southwestern Balochistan province, where the two countries share a sparsely populated border of nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
Hours before the strike, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ulHaq Kakar had met Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the resort town of Davos, eastern Switzerland.
“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and can have serious consequences,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The strike “resulted in death of two innocent children while injuring three girls,” it added.
Pakistan said it summoned Tehran’s top diplomat in the capital Islamabad to protest the “unprovoked violation of its airspace.”
On Tuesday, the Nour News Agency posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Minutes ago, two important headquarters of the so-called Jaish-ul-Adl terrorist group was targeted in Pakistan.”
“These headquarters were destroyed by rockets and drones,” it added.
The group claimed responsibility for an attack in December on a police station in Rask that killed at least 11 Iranian police officers.
The United States has also labelled Jaish al-Adl a terrorist organization, saying the group “primarily targets Iranian security personnel,” but also government officials and civilians with assassinations, kidnappings and suicide bombings.
Tehran and Islamabad frequently accuse each other of allowing militants to operate from the other’s territory to launch attacks, but it is rare that official forces on either side engage.
“It is even more concerning that this illegal act has taken place despite the existence of several channels of communication between Pakistan and Iran,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said.
“Pakistan has always said terrorism is a common threat to all countries in the region that requires coordinated action,” it added. “Such unilateral acts are not in conformity with good neighborly relations and can seriously undermine bilateral trust and confidence.”
Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington, D.C.-based Wilson Center, warned of the seriousness of the strike.
“Iran has staged cross-border operations against Pakistan-based militants in the past, but I don’t recall anything on this scale,” he said on X. “This plunges Pakistan-Iran ties — a delicate relationship even in the best of times — into serious crisis.”