Pakistan yesterday condemned Iran for launching airstrikes the previous day that Tehran claimed targeted bases for a militant Sunni separatist group.
Islamabad denounced the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said the strike killed two children.
Tuesday’s strike on Pakistan’s restive southwestern Balochistan Province imperiled diplomatic relations between the neighbors.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Iran launched strikes late on Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed more than 90 people earlier this month.
In state media reports, which were later withdrawn without explanation, Iran said that its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard targeted bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice.”
The group, which seeks an independent Balochistan and has spread across Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, acknowledged the assault in a statement shared online.
Six bomb-carrying drones and rockets struck homes that the militants claimed housed children and wives of their fighters.
Jaish al-Adl said that the attack killed two children, and wounded two women and a teenage girl.
Videos shared by the Baluch group HalVash, purportedly from the site, showed a burning building and two charred, small corpses.
Three women were injured, aged between 28 and 35, the report said.
Three or four drones were fired from the Iranian side, hitting a mosque and other buildings, including a house, it said.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it issued a strong protest late on Tuesday with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and summoned an Iranian diplomat in Islamabad “to convey our strongest condemnation of this blatant violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.”
“The responsibility for the consequences will lie squarely with Iran,” it said.
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