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Iran-Pakistan air strike (Image Credit source: AFP)
Nine people were killed in Pakistan's retaliatory strikes on a border area in southeast Iran, raising tensions between Pakistan and Iran. According to the deputy provincial governor of Iran's Sistan Balochistan province, three women and four children were killed in the attack. The incident comes two days after Iran carried out attacks on “terrorist” targets in Pakistan. In which at least two children were killed. After this, Islamabad expelled the Iranian ambassador from the country and recalled its ambassador from Tehran.
Meanwhile, Matthew Miller of the US State Department said that the US is concerned about the growing tension in the region amid tensions between Iran and Pakistan. He has appealed to both parties to maintain control.
There is a border of about 900 kilometers between Iran and Pakistan, through which terrorists can easily enter the two countries. It is worth mentioning that this was the first missile attack on Iranian soil after the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in 1988.
The danger of war spreading in the Middle East increased
The attacks and counter-attacks raise the risk of the war spreading to other parts of the Middle East, which is already affected by the ongoing Israel-Gaza war. Meanwhile, Pakistan's foreign minister in a call with his Iranian counterpart on Friday appealed for closer cooperation on security issues and expressed his country's readiness to work with Iran on all issues.
The leaders of the two neighboring countries held talks this week, a day after Tehran retaliated with strikes on terrorist targets in Iran in response to an attack it said had targeted terrorist targets in Pakistan.
Pakistan said on Friday it did not want to escalate the standoff with Iran, as Islamabad's top civilian and military leadership gathered to review the situation following attacks on terrorist targets in each other's territory. A source in the Prime Minister's Office said that caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakkar held a meeting of the high-powered National Security Committee.
Iran started air defense exercises
Iran said on Friday it had successfully conducted an air defense exercise using drones designed to intercept enemy targets in an area stretching from its southwest to southeast coasts, amid rising tensions in the region.
Iran this week launched missile attacks on three separate countries – Iraq, Syria and Pakistan – while proxy terrorist groups it supports continue to target US and Western interests and fight Israel, leading to a escalation of the conflict. Fears could arise that could engulf the Middle East and spread to other regions. All of Iran's attacks on Iraq, Syria, and Pakistan were in response to attacks on its soil or against Iranian targets.
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