(Islamabad) Pakistan on Wednesday accused Iran of an airstrike that killed two children on its territory, after Tehran carried out similar raids in Iraq and Syria against what it called “anti-terrorist groups”. Iranians.
Islamabad deemed the strike, which occurred near the border shared by the two countries, “totally unacceptable” and unjustified.
Iranian authorities did not immediately comment. But according to Iranian state agency Nour News, the attack led to the destruction of the headquarters in Pakistan of the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice).
Jaish al-Adl, formed in 2012, is considered a terrorist group by Tehran and has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.
On Tuesday, Iran carried out missile attacks on what it called “spy” headquarters and “terrorist” targets in Syria and on autonomous Kurdistan in Iraq.
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 pro-Palestinian Houthi rebels from Yemen against commercial ships in the Red Sea.
The Islamabad statement did not specify where the Iranian strike took place.
Several Pakistani social media accounts reported explosions in Pakistan’s western province of Balochistan, where the two countries share a border of nearly a thousand kilometers.
“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and may have serious consequences,” the ministry warned in a statement.
The strike on Pakistani territory Tuesday evening “caused the death of two innocent children and injured three little girls,” according to the same source.
Pakistan said it had summoned Iran’s representative in Islamabad to protest “an unjustified violation of its airspace.”
The Iranian agency Nour News wrote on X: “A few minutes ago, two important headquarters of the terrorist group called Jaish-ul-Adl were targeted in Pakistan.”
“These headquarters were destroyed by rockets and drones,” she added.
In December, this organization claimed responsibility for the attack on a Rask police station that killed 11 Iranian police officers.
The United States, which classifies Jaish al-Adl as 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 suicide attacks.
“Illegal act”
Tehran and Islamabad 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.
“Pakistan has always maintained that terrorism is a common threat to all countries in the region and requires coordinated action […] Such unilateral acts are not in line with good neighborly relations and can seriously undermine bilateral trust,” the statement added.
Iraq recalled its ambassador to Tehran on Tuesday 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.
Iraq has disputed Tehran’s comments that the strikes targeted Israeli intelligence services in retaliation for Israel’s assassinations of Iranian and allied commanders.
Baghdad said it would lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council over this “attack on its sovereignty”.
Iranian diplomacy defended a “precise and targeted operation”, ensuring that it had “identified” and “targeted” the headquarters of “criminals”. […] using precision weapons.
Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a central element of its foreign policy since its Islamic revolution in 1979, and has described the deadly October 7 attack in Israel by Hamas as a “success”, although denying any involvement. direct.