Pakistan has launched missile strikes into Iran, killing nine people, after Iran carried out strikes in Pakistan late on Tuesday. Pakistan said its strikes had hit terrorist hideouts in Iran’s south-eastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. Iran condemned the attack, which it said killed three women, two men and four children who were not Iranian.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry said its strikes around the Iranian city of Saravan had come in light of credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities”and added that it fully respects Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In its own statement, Pakistan’s army said the precision strikes were conducted with drones, rockets and long-range missiles and targeted the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front.
Both groups are part of a decades-long struggle for greater autonomy in Balochistan, a remote region in south-western Pakistan.
There are over 13 million in the Balochistan province. There were over 12 million in the last 2017 census, but the population had almost doubled from 1998.
This is about 33% of the population of Afghanistan.
The Iranian Persions and the Pakistan Punjabi are each about 45% of their total population.
In Pakistan’s Balochistan province, insurgencies by Baloch nationalists have been fought in 1948, 1958–59, 1962–63 and 1973–1977, with an ongoing low-level insurgency beginning in 2003.
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The maps are difficult to assess- I can’t determine where the Baluch linguistic map fits into the Pakistani national map.
It seems strategically reckless for Iran to be opening another war front while the Gaza response is still under way, as well as the need to support factions in Lebanon and Yemen.
Iran also struck Iraq and Syria. Iraq is arming up:
“Iraq has reportedly now finalised a US$3.2Bn contract with Dassault Aviation to purchase 14 Rafale aircraft, with a down payment of US$240m. The Iraqi government has proposed paying for the new aircraft in oil supplies rather than currency.
Though reported as a replacement for the F-16, the relatively small Rafale purchase may be intended to augment the F-16s, perhaps in order to provide enhanced air defence capabilities with the Rafale’s MBDA Meteor armament, or perhaps to provide a heavier and longer-range air-to-ground punch.
It is by no means a given that Iraq would be allowed to purchase the Meteor, which has been withheld from Egypt as a result of pressure from Israel.
Since 2021 there have been a rumour that Iraq has been negotiating for the supply of 12 block three and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex (PAC) JF-17 Thunder aircraft from Pakistan, at a reported cost of US$664 million.”
See:
https://www.timesaerospace.aero/features/defence/iraq-set-to-invest-in-modernised-fighter-force