Pakistan on Wednesday accused Tehran of an airstrike that killed two children on its territory, after similar raids carried out in Iraq and Syria by Iran against what it called “anti-Iranian terrorist groups”.
Islamabad deemed the attack, which occurred Tuesday evening near the border shared by the two countries, “totally unacceptable” and unjustified.
The Iranian Mehr news agency specified that this “response by missile and drone” had targeted the headquarters in Pakistan of the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice in Arabic), in response to an “aggression against the security” of Iran.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian insisted that the Islamic Republic’s armed forces had targeted the “Iranian terrorist group” Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan.
“None of the nationals of the friendly and brotherly country of Pakistan were targeted by Iranian missiles and drones,” declared the Iranian minister on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“Terrorist group”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said Amir-Abdollahian spoke with his Pakistani counterpart Jalil Abbas Jilani on Wednesday.
Mr. Amir-Abdollahian said that “Jaish al-Adl is a terrorist group that acts against the common security of the two countries,” according to a summary of the conversation released by Tehran.
Jaish al-Adl, formed in 2012, has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.
Iran’s Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs, Mohammad Hosseini, on Wednesday deemed it “natural” that his country reacted after unsuccessfully asking Pakistan to “prevent the entry into Iran of people who kill large numbers of people” .
“We do not set limits to the defense of our national interests and that of our people,” declared Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani.
On Tuesday, Iran launched missile attacks on what it called “spy” headquarters and “terrorist” targets in Syria and autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.
These Iranian strikes come at a time when the Middle East is shaken by the war between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip and attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels supported by Iran against commercial ships at sea Red.
The Islamabad statement did not specify where the Iranian strike took place. According to Pakistani media, it occurred near Panjgur, in the southwest of Balochistan province (west), where Pakistan and Iran share a border of a thousand kilometers.
China, which maintains special ties with these two countries, called on them to “restraint” and “avoid actions that could exacerbate tensions”.
A few hours before this attack, the interim Prime Minister of Pakistan, Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar, met the head of Iranian diplomacy, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on the sidelines of the Davos Forum (Switzerland).
“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and may have serious consequences,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry warned in a statement.
The strike on Pakistani territory Tuesday evening “caused the death of two innocent children and three little girls were injured,” according to the same source.
Iranian representative summoned
Pakistan said it had summoned Iran’s representative in Islamabad to protest against “an unjustified violation of its airspace” and had recalled its ambassador from Tehran.
In December, Jaish-al-Adl claimed responsibility for an attack on a police station in Rask in Sistan-Baluchistan province, in which 11 Iranian police officers were killed.
The United States, which considers Jaish al-Adl a terrorist organization, maintains that this group “primarily targets members of the Iranian security forces” but also government officials and civilians through assassinations, kidnappings and attacks. suicides.
Iran and Pakistan frequently accuse each other of allowing rebel groups to operate from each other’s territory to launch attacks, but it is rare for official forces from either country to engage .
“What is all the more worrying is that this illegal act took place despite the existence of several channels of communication between Pakistan and Iran,” Pakistani diplomacy said.
For Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, “this precipitates Pakistani-Iranian relations […] in a serious crisis.
“Iran has staged cross-border operations against Pakistan-based militants in the past but I don’t recall anything of this magnitude,” he wrote on X.
“Clear act of aggression”
On Tuesday, Iraq recalled its ambassador to Tehran and denounced “a clear act of aggression” in the autonomous Kurdistan region, where four people were killed and six others injured in a raid, according to local authorities.
Baghdad disputed Tehran’s comments that the strikes targeted Israeli intelligence services in retaliation for Israel’s assassinations of Iranian and allied commanders.
Iraq said it would lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council over this “attack on its sovereignty”.
Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a central element of its foreign policy since its 1979 Islamic revolution and has described the deadly October 7 attack in Israel by Hamas as a “success”, although denying any direct involvement. .