“This morning Pakistan undertook a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran. A number of terrorists were killed during the Intelligence-based operation,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, code-naming the operation “Marg Bar Sarmachar.”
At least three women and four children “who did not have Iranian nationality” were killed during Pakistan’s raids near Sistan and Baluchestan’s city of Saravan, on the Pakistani border, Iran’s state IRNA news agency said, citing the province’s deputy governor Ali Reza Marhamati.
The death toll later rose to at least nine killed according to Marhamati, as quoted by IRNA.
The cross-border attacks between Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan adds a new front to multiple ongoing crises in the Middle East between regional powers as Israel wages war in Gaza and Yemen’s Houthi rebels stage maritime attacks in the Red Sea.
It comes amid heightened tensions between nuclear-armed Islamabad and Tehran after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) late Tuesday launched attacks on Jaish al-Adl (Justice Army), a Balochi Sunni militant group operating across the sparsely-populated border regions.
A night before, the IRGC launched strikes on the Kurdistan Region and Syria.
“Pakistan will continue to take all necessary steps to preserve the safety and security of its people which is sacrosanct, inviolable, and sacred,” the foreign ministry statement said.
In a press conference in Islamabad, foreign ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch announced that Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar will cut short his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and return to Pakistan to assess the latest developments.
Islamabad and Tehran have repeatedly accused one another of allowing militants to operate from across their borders to carry out attacks.
China, a close partner of both countries, on Thursday expressed its readiness to mediate between Pakistan and Iran. Both countries are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
“Pakistan fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The sole objective of today’s act was in pursuit of Pakistan’s own security and national interest which is paramount and cannot be compromised,” the foreign ministry added.
AFP contributed to this report
