Pakistan Strikes Back, Bombing Iran over Alleged Terror Threat

Pakistan's Air Force fighter Mirage aircrafts take part in a rehearsal for the Pakistan Da
QURESHI / AFP) (Photo by AAMIR QURESHI/AFP via Getty
Frances Martel

The government of Pakistan confirmed “precision strikes” on alleged terror targets in Iran on Thursday, apparently a direct response to Iranian forces invading and bombing Pakistan less than two days prior.

The strikes allegedly targeted two separatist groups, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF); the government of Iran claimed that Pakistani forces killed nine people, including four children. The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Armed Forces (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, fired missiles into Pakistan on Tuesday in an operation it claimed was meant to neutralize the threat from another terrorist organization Jaish al-Adl, prompting an outraged response from Islamabad that included the withdrawal of its ambassador to Tehran.

Jaish al-Adl is a Sunni militant organization affiliated with the Baloch ethnic group, which inhabits the border regions of both Iran and Pakistan. Like the BLA and BLF, Jaish al-Adl’s terrorist operations are in pursuit of a separatist project: the creation of a sovereign “Balochistan” from territory currently under both Iranian and Pakistani rule. Iran and Pakistan agree that the groups in question are terrorist organizations but often clash on the matter, accusing each other of not doing enough to keep the separatist threat at bay on their respective side of the border.

Iran’s bombing of Pakistan on Tuesday followed a wave of attacks throughout the region, including in Iraq and Syria. In Iraq, the terrorist IRGC claimed to target nonexistent “Mossad bases” in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, but in reality killed a prominent local businessman and his daughter ten days before her first birthday.

A screen grab captured from a video shows the site as Iran announces that 9 people, including 3 women and 4 children, died in the missile attack carried out by Pakistan on a village in the border in Iran on January 18, 2024. (Iranian State Television (IRIB) / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

The Pakistani military claimed that its bombing of Iran on Thursday was intended to eradicate a national security threat, not as revenge for Iran’s violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.

“The targeted hideouts were being used by notorious terrorists including Dosta alias Chairman, Bajjar alias Soghat, Sahil alias Shafaq, Asghar alias Basham and Wazir alias Wazi, amongst others,” the Pakistani military’s Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement on Tuesday, according to the newspaper Dawn.

“The precision strikes were carried out using killer drones, rockets, loitering munitions and stand-off weapons. Maximum care was taken to avoid collateral damage.”

The Foreign Office of the Pakistani government issued a separate statement expressing exasperation with Iran’s alleged inaction against Baloch separatist groups.

“Over the last several years, in our engagements with Iran, Pakistan has consistently shared its serious concerns about the safe havens and sanctuaries enjoyed by Pakistani origin terrorists calling themselves Sarmachars on the ungoverned spaces inside Iran,” the statement read. “However, because of lack of action on our serious concerns, these so-called Sarmachars continued to spill the blood of innocent Pakistanis with impunity.”

An infographic titled ‘Iran-Pakistan border tensions surge’ created in Ankara, Turkiye on January 18, 2024. (Elmurod Usubaliev/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities by these so-called Sarmachars,” it added.

The Pakistani government called for “dialogue” and claimed that it “fully respects the sovereignty” of Iran.

Social media accounts associated with the Pakistani military published images claiming to show some of the strikes.

Iran’s state-run PressTV, citing anonymous “security officials,” claimed that the airstrikes in Iranian territory killed “two men, three women, and four children,” all non-Iranian nationals.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry formally condemned the Pakistani incursion and claimed to be “investigating” the incident. Tehran summoned the highest-ranking diplomat from Pakistan in the country to lodge a protest – Pakistan had recalled its ambassador a day before – and to demand an “explanation,” the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News reported on Thursday.

The strikes on Thursday reverse the diplomatic situation from Tuesday, in which Pakistan sternly condemned Iran for crossing the border to bomb alleged terrorists.

“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and can have serious consequences,” a Pakistani government statement read on Wednesday. “Pakistan strongly condemns the unprovoked violation of its airspace by Iran and the strike inside Pakistani territory which resulted in the death of two innocent children while injuring three girls.”

Islamabad asserted “the right to respond” in its statement, though it has not described the strikes on Thursday as a direct response.

In contrast, the Iranian government insisted that it needed to bomb Pakistan for “self-defense” reasons, using language similar to that which Pakistani leaders used on Thursday.

“We respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan and Iraq, but we do not allow our national security to be compromised, and we have no compunction about [dealing with] terrorist parties inside Pakistan and Israeli movements in the Kurdistan region of Iraq,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian asserted, tying the bombings of Pakistan to the stray missiles hitting civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan. “What we did was aimed at boosting the security of Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and the region. We consider the security of Iraq and Pakistan to be that of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

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