Pakistan targets ‘terrorist hideouts’ with Iran attack

Iranian state media reported three women and four children were killed in explosions in the country’s southeast.

Search and rescue operations in a building hit by an Iranian missile strike on Arbil. Picture: AFP

Pakistan said on Thursday it had carried out strikes against militant targets in Iran, after Tehran launched attacks on Pakistani territory earlier this week.

Iranian state media reported three women and four children were killed in explosions in the country’s southeast.

“This morning, Pakistan undertook a series of highly co-ordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran,” a foreign ministry statement said, adding that a “number of terrorists were killed”.

“This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities.”

The attack comes after Iran confirmed carrying out strikes against “a terrorist group” late on Tuesday in Pakistan – an attack that Islamabad said had killed two children.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Wednesday denounced the “unprovoked and blatant breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty” before recalling its ambassador from Iran and blocking Tehran’s envoy – currently in Iran – from returning to the country.

The missile and drone attack targeted the Jaish al-Adl group in Pakistan, Iran’s government said, after Tehran also launched attacks in Iraq and Syria.

Tehran and Islamabad frequently accuse each other of allowing militants to operate from the other’s territory to launch attacks, but it is rare that official ­forces on either side engage.

On Wednesday, Iranian Defence minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said Tehran would set “no limits” to its security.

China, close partners of Iran and Pakistan, urged restraint, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning saying both should “avoid actions that would lead to an escalation of tension”.

The US condemned the Iranian strikes in Pakistan, Iraq and Syria, with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller saying Tehran had violated the ­“sovereign borders of three of its neighbours”.

AFP