Pakistan retaliates with strikes in Iran
Follows Iran’s surprise attacks earlier this week
ISLAMABAD — In an expansion of hostilities rippling through the region, Pakistan said Thursday that it had carried out airstrikes inside Iran, after Iranian forces attacked what they said were militant camps in Pakistan two days earlier.
The Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry said the country’s forces had conducted “precision military strikes” against what it called terrorist hideouts in southeastern Iran. Iranian officials said nine people were killed, including four children, and Pakistani officials said the death toll of the Iranian strikes included at least two children.
A senior Pakistani security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Pakistan had struck at least seven locations used by separatists from the Baluch ethnic group about 30 miles inside the Iranian border. The official said that air force fighter jets and drones had been used in the Pakistani retaliatory strikes.
Pakistan’s strikes came two days after Iran’s surprise attacks within the borders of Pakistan and Iraq, which Iran said were aimed at militant training camps and a response to domestic terrorism. Iranian forces had hit inside Pakistan before, but Pakistan’s strikes marked the first time since the end of the Iran-Iraq war, more than 30 years ago, that Iran’s airspace had been violated by another country’s attacks.
In a statement, Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the attacks, calling them “unbalanced and unacceptable,” and saying that the Islamic Republic “considers the security of its people and its territorial integrity as a red line.”
Iran’s minister of interior, Ahmad Vahidi, said nine people had been killed in the attacks, including four children and three women. Speaking to state television, he said the people were from Pakistan and not Iranian citizens, and that they had been killed when their homes, near the town of Saravan a few kilometers from the Pakistan border, were hit by the strikes.
But the Foreign Ministry also appeared to try to defuse tensions. It referred to Pakistan as a friendly neighbor, and said that Iran did not want to “allow enemies to strain the amicable and brotherly relations of Tehran and Islamabad” and said that it distinguished between the government of Pakistan, an ally, and terrorist groups operating within its borders.
The strikes in Pakistan, the ministry said, were meant to thwart a terrorist threat. The ministry said that, on Jan. 16, the border task force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard had intercepted a terrorist group’s plans to infiltrate the border from Pakistan in order to carry out an attack similar to one in the city of Rask in December, when 10 border officers were killed.
An emboldened Iran has been using its proxy forces against Israel and that country’s allies since the war in the Gaza Strip began in October after the Hamas-led attacks on Israel. Those actions, and now the attacks by Iran on other countries in the region, have increased the risk that the upheaval washing over the Middle East could grow. Iran has been trying to project strength after recent attacks inside its borders made it look vulnerable.
One of Iran’s proxies, the Houthi militia in Yemen, has gained attention in the region with its attacks on vessels in Red Sea shipping lanes that link to the Suez Canal. The leader of the Houthis declared Thursday that a direct clash with the United States would only strengthen the group and vowed to continue attacking commercial ships.
Responding to the continued attacks, the United States, for the fifth time in a week, struck Houthi antiship missiles in Yemen on Thursday, underlining the growing volatility in the region and US involvement.
The tensions have also grown around Israel’s northern borders, where Israel has clashed with another Iran-backed group, Hezbollah. Asked at a news conference Thursday about Israel’s efforts to counter Iran’s proxies rather than Iran itself, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu contested the premise. “Who told you we weren’t attacking Iran?” he said. “We’re attacking!”