Pakistan attacks Iran in response to an attack by Iranian forces
Pakistan's air force carried out strikes in Iran on Thursday, responding a day after Iranian forces attacked militant camps in Pakistan, as conflicts roiling the Middle East threatened to spread further.
A senior Pakistani security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pakistan had attacked at least seven camps used by Baluch separatist militants about 50 kilometers inside the border in southeastern Iran. The official said air force fighter jets and drones were used in the Pakistani retaliatory strikes.
A day earlier, Iran carried out an airstrike in Pakistan's Baluchistan province. The Iranian government later said that the attack in Pakistan, as well as those it carried out in Iraq and Syria, showed that Iran would retaliate against enemies everywhere with force.
An emboldened Iran has been using its proxy forces against Israel and its allies since the start of the war in Gaza in October. These actions, and now Iran's own attacks on other countries in the region, have increased the risk that unrest across the Middle East could increase.
Iranian officials said the attack in Pakistan targeted militants threatening Iran, but Pakistani authorities rejected that account, citing civilian casualties as a result of the attack.
Pakistan denounced the Iranian attack as a blatant violation of international law and said it “reserves the right to respond.”
Pakistan has long maintained that Baluch separatists, who have waged a low-level insurgency in southwestern Pakistan's Baluchistan province for decades, have hideouts across the border in Iran. Iran has also accused Pakistan of not doing enough to contain militants targeting Iranian security.
“A calculated and timely response was needed to debunk the Iranian misconception that an unprovoked, surprise military attack on Pakistan will not produce a strong, but calibrated and rapid response,” Syed Muhammad Ali, a security analyst based in Islamabad, said in a statement. interview.
He added that both sides had strong incentives to cool tensions now that Pakistan had responded, “as neither country will gain anything from further military exchange or escalation.”
On Thursday, after the Pakistani attack in Iran, channels on the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' messaging app Telegram showed images of rubble from residential areas near the border with Pakistan. Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency confirmed that several explosions had occurred in the border area.