2024-01-18 05:38:00
(CNN) — Pakistan attacked seven locations inside Iran, a Pakistani security official told CNN on Thursday, in the latest incident along their shared border that has raised tensions between the two neighbors.
At least seven people were killed following explosions in the province of Sistan and Balochistan, in southwestern Iran, early Thursday, according to the province’s deputy governor, Alireza Marhamati, in an interview on state television.
Marhamati said the dead included three women and four children, who were foreign nationals.
“At 4:30 a.m. local time, explosions were heard in a border village and several missiles were fired at the village,” Marhamati said.
The lieutenant governor said another explosion occurred near Saravan town, but there were no casualties from that second explosion.
Iranian state media reported explosions around Saravan while a Pakistani security official told CNN that Pakistan carried out attacks in Iran.
Security officials are investigating, Iranian state media IRNA said. CNN has contacted Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Both Pakistan and Iran have long fought militants in the restive Balochistan region along their 900-kilometre border, but the latest incident marks a major escalation between the two neighboring powers and comes as regional hostilities in the Middle East East increase and add to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.
Pakistan’s missile launch comes a day following Iran said it used “precision missile and drone strikes” to destroy two strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, according to the Tasnim news agency, aligned with the Iranian state.
The strikes killed two children and injured several more, according to local officials and Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, which described the attack as an “unprovoked violation of its airspace by Iran” and warned Iran of “serious consequences”.
It also began a diplomatic row with Pakistan on Wednesday by withdrawing its ambassador from Iran and suspending all high-level Iranian visits.
A spokesperson for Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan should not return from a current visit to Iran and warned that “Pakistan reserves the right to respond to this illegal act.”
Iran has defended the attacks and appeared to try to calm tensions with its nuclear-powered neighbor.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said his country was only attacking Iranian “terrorists” on Pakistani soil and that “none of the citizens of the friendly country of Pakistan were attacked by Iranian missiles and drones.”
A Foreign Office spokesperson previously defended the attacks as a “precise and targeted” operation to deter security threats.
But the deadly attack inside Pakistani territory seriously damaged relations between the two countries, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khalil Abbas Jilani told his Iranian counterpart.
“The Foreign Minister strongly underlined that the attack carried out by Iran inside Pakistani territory, on January 16, 2024, was not only a grave violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty but also a flagrant violation of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran,” the ministry said.
Jilani also warned that unilateral actions might undermine regional security, saying terrorism is a common threat that must be addressed through coordinated efforts, his office said.
The Baloch people live where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet. They have always resented being ruled by both Islamabad and Tehran and insurgencies have proliferated along the porous border region for decades.
The area they live in is also rich in natural resources and Baloch separatists complain that their people, some of the poorest in the region, have seen little wealth reach their communities.
Jaish al-Adl, or Justice Army, attacked by Iran on Tuesday, is a separatist militant group that operates on both sides of the border and has previously claimed responsibility for attacks once morest Iranian targets.
Its stated objective is the independence of the Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan, neighboring Pakistan.
On Wednesday, it claimed responsibility for an attack on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vehicle in Sistan and Balochistan that, according to Iranian state media, killed one of its colonels.
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