Key PointsSeveral missiles hit a village in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province that borders Pakistan, Iranian media said.Pakistan described it as a series of “precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts”.The strikes come two days after Iran said it had targeted Israel-linked militant bases inside Pakistan.
Pakistan conducted strikes inside Iran on Thursday, targeting separatist militants, the Pakistani foreign ministry said, two days after Tehran said it attacked Israel-linked militant bases inside Pakistani territory.
The neighbours have had rocky relations in the past but the strikes are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years.
Iran’s strike and Pakistan’s retaliatory attack deepen worries about instability across the Middle East since the Hamas-Israel war started on 7 October, with Iran’s allies also entering the fray.
Iranian media said several missiles hit a village in the Sistan-Balochistan province that borders Pakistan, killing at least nine people.
Earlier reports said three women and four children were killed, all non-Iranians.
“A number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation,” the Pakistani ministry said in a statement, describing it as a “series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts”.
It added, “Pakistan fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
“The sole objective of today’s act was in pursuit of Pakistan’s own security and national interest, which is paramount and cannot be compromised.”
Iran has summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires “to protest and request an explanation from the Pakistani government”, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
Iran’s ministry described Pakistan’s strikes as “unbalanced and unacceptable”, and said Iran expects Pakistan “to adhere to its obligations in preventing the establishment of bases and armed terrorist groups in Pakistan”.
But the foreign ministry underlined that Iran understood that Pakistan’s “friendly and brotherly government is separate from armed terrorists”.
Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar will cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and return home, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
A Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters the strikes were carried out by military aircraft.
“Our forces have conducted strikes to target Baloch militants inside Iran,” said the official in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
“The targeted militants belong to BLF,” he said, referring to the Baloch Liberation Front, which seeks independence for Pakistan’s Balochistan province.
Iran said on Tuesday it had hit Israel-linked militant bases inside Pakistan.
Pakistan said civilians had been hit and two children killed, warning of consequences for which Tehran would be responsible. Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Iran on Wednesday.
The neighbours had appeared to be improving ties, with Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and Kakar meeting at Davos this week, before the Iranian strikes on Pakistan.
Khawaja Asif, Pakistan’s defence minister until August, said the action was retaliatory.
“A measured response has been given and it was important,” he told Geo TV.
“There should be ongoing efforts on the side that this doesn’t escalate.”
Concerns about escalation
Russia’s foreign ministry on Thursday called on Pakistan and Iran to show maximum restraint and solve their differences through diplomacy.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said after speaking with his counterparts from both countries that neither side wanted to escalate tensions.
China offered to mediate between the neighbours, both close economic partners of Beijing.
The White House urged Iran and Pakistan to avoid escalation, while the European Union expressed concern about the “spiral of violence in the Middle East and beyond”.
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