Pakistan launches retaliatory strikes against Iran, with reports of nine killed - 2024/01/18
//Summary - Level-C2//
Pakistan launched retaliatory strikes into Iran, reportedly killing nine people. The strikes targeted alleged "terrorist hideouts" in the Iranian province of Sistan-Baluchestan. Tensions in the Middle East have escalated, with simultaneous conflicts involving Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iranian-backed groups and the US and UK in different regions. Pakistan cited "credible intelligence" for its actions, focusing on the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front. Analysts see this tit-for-tat exchange as a risky escalation driven by domestic and regional pressures, with China urging restraint.
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Pakistan has launched missile strikes into Iran, reportedly killing nine people, after Iran carried out attacks in Pakistan late on Tuesday.
Pakistan said its strikes had hit "terrorist hideouts" in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan.
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Three women, two men and four children were killed, Iranian state television said.
The tit-for-tat air strikes come during high tensions in the Middle East, with several crises overlapping.
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Israel is battling the Palestinian group Hamas in Gaza and exchanging fire with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria are targeting US forces, and the US and Britain have struck Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have been attacking shipping.
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Pakistan and Iran have long accused each other of harbouring militant groups that launch attacks from regions along their shared border.
On Thursday, Pakistan's foreign ministry confirmed the strikes, which Iranian media said took place around Saravan.
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Pakistan said it had acted on 'credible intelligence of imminent large-scale terrorist activity' and that several 'terrorists' had been killed.
It added that it 'fully respects' Iran's 'sovereignty and territorial integrity', but its action on Thursday was 'a manifestation of Pakistan's unwavering resolve to protect and defend its national security against all threats'.
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Pakistan's army said the "precision strikes" were carried out using drones, rockets and long-range missiles.
It said they targeted 'terrorist organisations', namely the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front.
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Both groups are part of a decades-long struggle for greater autonomy in Balochistan, a remote region in south-west Pakistan.
Pakistan had strongly condemned Iran's strike on Tuesday, which hit an area of Pakistan's Balochistan province near the Iranian border and which Islamabad said killed two children.
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Iran insisted its strikes were only targeting Jaish al-Adl, an ethnic Baloch Sunni Muslim group that has carried out attacks inside Iran, and not Pakistani citizens.
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Earlier in the week, Iran also struck targets in Iraq and Syria. It said it had hit Islamic State and Israel's Mossad spy agency, both of which it claimed were involved in a bombing in the Iranian city of Kerman earlier this month that killed 84 people.
Iran shows missile capabilities with regional strikes
Analysts said Pakistan's response was not surprising and echoed Iran's in that it was portrayed as a targeted attack on insurgents.
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"While Pakistan's retaliation increases the risk of escalation, it also provides an opportunity to step back from the brink. In effect, the two sides are now even," said Michael Kugelman, South Asia director at the Wilson Center.
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"Islamabad had a strong incentive to try to restore deterrence, especially with Iran on the offensive across the region, using direct strikes and proxies to strike at threats and rivals."
Indeed, if Pakistan had held back, it would have faced the risk of additional strikes.
Others suggested that the government in Islamabad was under domestic pressure to respond. The country, which ousted its former leader Imran Khan nearly two years ago, is holding elections next month.
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"There was a lot of public pressure on the government to do something, and so they did this just to prove that they are no less than [Iran], this act of sabre-rattling," said retired Lieutenant General Asif Yaseen, a former Pakistani defence secretary.
But he said he had a 'gut feeling that this will stop here for both countries' and that Pakistan might now be in a position to resume dialogue with Iran.
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Some commentators have suggested that the current turbulent dynamics in the Middle East also drove Iran's attacks on Iraq, Syria and Pakistan this week.
Tehran has said it does not want to get involved in the wider Israel-Gaza conflict. Still, groups it supports have targeted Israel and its allies in a show of solidarity with the Palestinians.
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But Shashank Joshi, defence editor of The Economist, says he does not believe the strikes are a result of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed about 1,300 people and triggered Israeli retaliation against Hamas in Gaza, which officials at the Hamas-run health ministry there say has killed nearly 24,000 people.
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"The story here is about Iran flexing its muscles, perhaps outraged by what it sees as a severe attack on its country [in Kerman on January 3, which is] the worst terrorist attack in Iran since the 1979 revolution ... Iran is wounded and lashing out.
"I don't think there's any compelling reason to say that the bombing was caused by or is a consequence of October 7," Mr Joshi told the BBC's Today programme.
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He adds that this is not the first time tensions have been on the border, but this is by far the most severe escalation I can remember.
China, a strong ally of both nations, has called on both sides to show restraint and avoid escalation.
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