According to Iranian official media, Pakistan launched a missile attack on Iran’s southeast border region on Thursday, killing at least three women and four children.
“Pakistan attacked an Iranian border village with missiles,” state television said, quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province.
“Three women and four children were killed in this incident. All non-Iranian nationals,” he added.
The attack targeted a village near the city of Saravan, on the border with Pakistan, he noted.
Iran’s Mehr news agency had earlier reported “drone and missile attacks” in the restive region, saying “several” people were injured.
Two days prior to the missile strike, Iran had attacked “terrorist” sites in Pakistan, resulting in the deaths of at least two children.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Iran’s foreign minister, claimed on Wednesday that Tehran was focusing on a “Iranian terrorist group” operating in Pakistan.
According to him, the strikes were a reaction to the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl’s fatal attacks in southeast Iran. The group was founded in 2012 and was placed on Tehran’s “terrorist” blacklist.
“None of the nationals of the friendly and brotherly country of Pakistan were targeted by Iranian missiles and drones,” Abollahian said.
Pakistan recalled its ambassador from Iran on Wednesday, protested the strikes close to their shared border, and prevented Tehran’s representative from leaving Islamabad.
Jaish al-Adl stated on January 10 that one police officer was killed in an attack on a police station in the southeast city of Rask. Eleven police officers were killed in a similar incident that the organization carried out in December.
According to IRNA, the organization claimed to have killed a member of Iran’s potent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday.
