Pakistan launches airstrikes in Iran
Attacks kill 9, imperil diplomatic relations
Munir Ahmed and Jon Gambrell
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s air force launched retaliatory airstrikes early Thursday in Iran against alleged militant hideouts, killing at least nine people and further raising tensions between the neighbors.
Thursday’s attack followed one by Iran inside Pakistan on Tuesday. Both appeared to target Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals on either side of the Iran-Pakistan border. The countries accuse each other of providing safe haven to the groups in their respective territories.
The attacks also come as the Middle East remains unsettled by Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran also staged airstrikes late Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people in early January.
The strikes imperiled diplomatic relations between Islamabad and Tehran, as Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks. Both nations face their own internal political pressures, and the strikes may in part be in response to that.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry described its attack Thursday as “a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes.”
“This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large scale terrorist activities,” it said in a statement. “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. Standoff weapons are missiles fired from aircraft at a distance – likely meaning Pakistan’s fighter jets didn’t enter Iranian airspace.
Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar, attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, cut his trip short to return home.
A deputy governor of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, Ali Reza Marhamati, gave the casualty figures from Thursday’s strike, saying the dead included three women, four children and two men near the town of Saravan along the border. He said the dead were not Iranian citizens. The Baluch Liberation Army, an ethnic separatist group that has operated in the region since 2000, said in a statement the strikes targeted and killed its people. “Pakistan has martyred innocent Baluch people,” it said.
Pakistan’s military also said the strikes hit targets associated with the Baluchistan Liberation Front, though that group did not acknowledge the claim.
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. It shared videos showing a mud-walled building destroyed and smoke rising from the strike.