Iran launches drone, missile attacks on Baluchi militant bases in Pakistan

Iran launched drone and missile attacks on two bases of the Baluchi militant group Jaish al Adl in Pakistan on Tuesday, Iranian state media reported, day after its elite Revolutionary Guards attacked targets in Iraq and Syria with missiles.

The militant group has previously mounted attacks on Iranian security forces in the border area with Pakistan. “These bases were hit and destroyed by missiles and drones,” Iranian state media reported, without elaborating.

Confusion followed the announcements as some of the reports soon disappeared. However, any attack inside of nuclear-armed Pakistan by Iran would threaten the relations between the two countries, which long have eyed each other with suspicion while maintaining diplomatic relations.

Iran’s Nournews, affiliated with the country’s top security body, said the attacked bases were located in Pakistan’s Balochistan province.

Jan Achakzai, information minister of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which borders Iran, declined to confirm or deny the attack. “Wait for the response of ISPR,” he said, referring to the Pakistani military’s public relations wing.

The reported attack follows Iranian strikes on Iraq and Syria less than a day earlier, as Tehran lashes out following a dual suicide bombing this month claimed by the Sunni militant group Islamic State that killed over 90 people.

The state-run IRNA news agency and state television had said that missiles and drones were used in the strikes in Pakistan, which were not immediately acknowledged by the Pakistani government.

Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice,” is a Sunni militant group founded in 2012 that largely operates across the border in Pakistan. Iran has fought in border areas against the militants, but a missile-and-drone attack on Pakistan would be unprecedented for Iran.

The militants have claimed bombings and kidnapped Iranian border police in the past.

The state media reports were later suddenly removed without explanation, though the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies still ran nearly identical stories on their websites Tuesday night. Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state television, later attributed the attack to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.

The reports described the strikes as happening in the mountains of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, the scene of low-level insurgency by Baluch nationalists for more than two decades. Baluch nationalists initially wanted a share of provincial resources, but later initiated an insurgency for independence.

Authorities offered no explanation of what was happening, though sensitive stories in Iran can suddenly disappear from state media.

Officials in Pakistan did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Iran long has suspected Sunni-majority Pakistan as hosting insurgents, possibly at the behest of its regional archrival Saudi Arabia. However, Iran and Saudi Arabia reached a Chinese-mediated détente last March, easing tensions.

Late Monday, Iran fired missiles into northern Syria targeting the Islamic State group and into Iraq at what it called an Israeli “spy headquarters” near the U.S. Consulate compound in the city of Irbil.

Iraq on Tuesday called the attacks, which killed several civilians, a “blatant violation” of Iraq’s sovereignty and recalled its ambassador from Tehran.

With inputs from agencies.