Pakistan said it used rockets and drones to strike separatist Baloch militants inside Iran on Thursday, in a retaliatory strike two days after Tehran said it attacked the bases of another group within Pakistani territory. Iranian media said several missiles hit a village in the Sistan-Baluchestan province that borders Pakistan, killing at least nine people, including four children. The neighbours have had rocky ties in the past, but the strikes are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years and come amid growing worries about instability in the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7th. Tehran strongly condemned the strikes, saying civilians were killed, and summoned Pakistan’s charge d’affaires, its most senior diplomat in Iran, to give an explanation. In Islamabad, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-haq Kakar would cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and return home. As Pakistan’s retaliatory strike on Iran stokes regional tension, FRANCE 24’s Shona BHATTACHARYYA is joined by Dr. Amalendu Misra, Professor of International Politics at Lancaster University with an expertise on violence in the political process.
Baloch separatists in ‘porous, remote’ territory of Iran, Pakistan source of cross-border conflict
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