Iran’s Strikes Into Pakistan ‘Sent Strong Message’ to US, Israel and Their Terror Proxies
©AFP 2023/SEPAH NEWS
The IRGC bombarded bases belonging to the Jaish ul-Adl terrorist militia group in a remote area of Pakistan on Tuesday, with the strikes coming less than 24 hours after separate Iranian attacks on jihadist and Mossad targets in Syria and Iraq. Sputnik asked veteran political analyst Mohammad Marandi about the Pakistan strikes’ implications.
Iranian media has released details about Tuesday’s dramatic Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) missile and drone attacks against two major bases belonging to the Jaish ul-Adl (lit. "Army of Justice") terrorist group in Baluchistan, western Pakistan, revealing that the strikes targeted the Koh-e-Sabz area of the province, the militants’ home base.
“We see no limitations in defending our national interests and people, and will certainly do this authoritatively,” Iranian Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said Wednesday in the wake of this week’s series of extra-territorial missile strikes. “No matter where threats against the Islamic Republic come from, we will react and the response will surely be proportionate, decisive and strong.”
Pakistan recalled its ambassador to Iran on Wednesday and barred Tehran's envoy from returning to Islamabad, with the Pakistani Foreign Ministry condemning the “illegal and unacceptable” Iranian strikes and reserving the right to respond. Just hours before the attacks, warships from the two countries held a naval drill in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf near the port city of Bandar Abbas.
‘Strong Messages’
“The Iranians are sending strong messages both to the Israeli and US regimes as well as their proxies” through their campaign of long-range missile and drone strikes, political analyst and Tehran University Professor Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik. “The so-called Jaish ul-Adl terror group has massacred many innocent Iranians. Since Pakistan’s government has limited control over areas near the Iranian border, Iran felt that it had no option but to strike at this group,” Marandi explained.
While Pakistan has condemned the strikes, "there is “more understanding between the Iranian government and the Pakistani government than meets the eye,” with the two countries traditionally enjoying “very good” ties and remaining in constant dialogue, according to Marandi.
“Of course, the Pakistani government needs to protest, but behind closed doors, both sides are cooperating, and both sides are very concerned about terrorism. The same is true with Iraq. The central government in Iraq has to protest against Iran for obvious reasons. But they know quite well that they do not have the sort of control over northern Iraq that they should have. They understand that American and Israeli influence there is detrimental to their interests and to the interests of the Iraqi people. So, behind closed doors, the relationship is very different. Iran and Pakistan as well as Iran and Iraq, will continue to preserve strong relations,” the scholar stressed.
Ultimately, Marandi believes Iran’s hand was forced in Pakistan by the recent escalation of terror attacks inside Iran, including in Rask and Kerman, which the observer characterized as an attempt to “pressure” the Islamic Republic over its support for the Palestinians in Gaza amid the Israeli military’s assault.
“The United States and Israel are using terror organizations to strike at Iran and the Resistance Front,” Marandi said, referring to the loose anti-US and anti-Israeli coalition of countries and groups including Iran, Syria, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Palestine’s Hamas militias.
“They’re using northern Iraq, Syria, as well as the no man’s land in Pakistan near the Iranian border to carry out these operations. We know that these terror organizations have a long-lasting relationship with Western intelligence agencies and the Mossad. So, as genocide is taking place in Gaza, US and Israeli terror groups have escalated attacks against Iran and the Resistance. For example, we saw the terror attacks in South-Eastern Iran. The Iranian strikes were retaliation for the terror attacks but also preemptive measures to prevent future attacks,” Marandi summed up.
Who are Jaish ul-Adl?
Hiding outside Iran to avoid a crackdown by the Islamic Republic’s military and security services, Jaish ul-Adl is a Sunni Salafist separatist group with links to al-Qaeda* which has waged a decade-plus long campaign of low-intensity guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks against the Iranian government since its founding in 2012. Over the past 12 years, the militants have targeted IRGC troops, border guards, police, and dozens of civilians in armed attacks, kidnappings and suicide bombings - with their latest attack occurring in mid-December, when Jaish ul-Adl attacked a police station in Rask in southeastern Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, killing 11 police officers in an ambush. The group has also been accused of drug smuggling, with Sistan and Baluchestan long serving as a crossroads of the international drug trade from Afghanistan to Europe before the Taliban** crackdown on opium poppy cultivation following the collapse of the US puppet government in the country in 2021.
Pakistan has strongly condemned an Iranian airstrike inside its borders that killed two children, calling it an “unprovoked violation of its airspace” and warning of retaliation.
Iran said it used “precision missile and drone strikes,” to destroy two strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl, known in Iran as Jaish al-Dhulm, in the Koh-e-Sabz area of Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, according to Iran’s state-aligned Tasnim news agency.
Tuesday’s attack comes after Iran launched missiles in northern Iraq and Syria Monday, in the latest escalation of hostilities in the Middle East where Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza risks spiraling into a wider regional conflict.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the attack on its territory killed “two innocent children” and warned Iran of “serious consequences.”
It described the airstrike as an “unprovoked violation of its airspace by Iran … inside Pakistani territory.”
“It is even more concerning that this illegal act has taken place despite the existence of several channels of communication between Pakistan and Iran,” the ministry said.
Pakistan on Wednesday recalled its ambassador from Iran and suspended all Iraninan high-level visits.
“Last night’s unprovoked and blatant breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty by Iran is a violation of international law and the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,” Mumtaz Baloch, a spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, said in a televised address.
She said the Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan should not return from a current visit to Iran and warned “Pakistan reserves the right to respond to this illegal act.”
China urged Iran and Pakistan to exercise restraint in handling their ongoing conflict after the deadly strike. The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday called on both countries to “avoid actions that would lead to an escalation of tension and work together to maintain peace and stability in the region.”
The Jaish al-Adl militant group late Tuesday said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had used six attack drones and a number of rockets to destroy two houses where the children and wives of its fighters lived.
Authorities in Balochistan province said two girls had died and at least four people were injured. The girls, aged eight and 12, were killed in houses that were damaged in the attack in the village of Koh-e-Sabz in Kulag, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) from Panjgur district, on Tuesday evening, according to the district’s deputy commissioner Mumtaz Khetran.
Khetran also said a mosque near the homes was targeted and hit in the strikes.
Koh-e-Sabz — about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from Pakistan’s border with Iran — is known to be the home of Jaish-ul-Adl’s former second-in-command Mullah Hashim, who was killed in clashes with Iranian forces in Sarawan, an Iranian region adjacent to Panjgur, in 2018.
Last month, Iran accused Jaish al-Adl militants of storming a police station in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Iranian police officers, according to Tasnim.
Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, is a separatist militant group that operates on both sides of the border and has previously claimed responsibility for attacks against Iranian targets. Its stated goal is the independence of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province.
Iran said Wednesday it “only targeted Iranian terrorists on the soil of Pakistan” and that “none of the nationals of the friendly country of Pakistan were targeted” in the strike.
“We respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan. But we don’t allow our national security to be compromised and to be played with and we have no reservation when it comes to our national interests,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The strikes in Pakistan came a day after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched ballistic missiles, targeting what it claimed was a spy base for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad in Erbil, northern Iraq, and at “anti-Iran terror groups” in Syria.
Iran said the strikes in Iraq were in response to what it said were Israeli attacks that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders, and claimed targets in Syria were involved in the recent dual bombings in the city of Kerman during a memorial for the slain Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani that left scores dead and wounded.
It defended the strikes as a “precise and targeted” operation to deter security threats, Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said in a statement on Tuesday.
Iran’s attacks will further raise fears that Israel’s war in Gaza could widen into a full-scale war in the Middle East with grave humanitarian, political and economic consequences.
The attacks in Iraq and Syria were condemned by the United States as “reckless” and imprecise, while the United Nations said, “security concerns must be addressed through dialogue, not strikes.”
Iraq said it submitted a complaint to the UN Security Council and the UN on Tuesday. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein said there are no Mossad-affiliated centers operating in Erbil in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
But, speaking Fareed Zakaria at Davos, Iran’s Foreign Minister repeated the country’s claim that the strike on Iraq was a response “against elements and agents of Mossad,” and said Iran has “very good relations” with both Iraq and Pakistan.
“We have talked and agreed for several times on the necessity of fighting terrorism,” he said, adding that the action taken by Iran “targeted Israel that remains a common enemy of both of us,” and that the country would respond to any attack “vigorously.”
He stressed that if Israel’s war in Gaza ends, then other conflicts across the Middle East would too. “If the genocide in Gaza stops, then it will lead to the end of other crises and attacks in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian said.
Concerns of an escalating war
Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza in response to Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks has killed more than 24,000 people, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, and wrought widespread devastation, as civilians live with the threat of imminent death – either by an airstrike, starvation or disease.
The conflict has escalated hostilities across the region, with Iran’s allies and proxies – the so-called axis of resistance – launching attacks on Israeli forces and its allies.
On Tuesday, the US military launched new strikes against Houthi targets inside Yemen, targeting anti-ship ballistic missiles controlled by the Iran-backed rebel group, a defense official said.
A few hours later, the Houthis launched a missile into international shipping lanes in the southern Red Sea, hitting the M/V Zografia, a Maltese flagged bulk carrier, the official said.
The strikes are at least the third round of attacks the US military has launched against the Houthis’ infrastructure since last Thursday, when American and British conducted a joint operation that targeted command and control nodes and weapons depots used by the Houthis to launch missile and drone attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.
US troops in Iraq and Syria have also repeatedly come under rocket and drone attacks from Tehran’s proxies. Last week, the US carried out a strike in Baghdad that killed a leader from an Iran-backed proxy group that Washington blamed for attacks against US personnel in the region.
And fighting has intensified between Israel and the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah, across the Lebanon border. On Sunday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah vowed to press on with confrontations with Israeli forces on the Lebanon border until the end of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.
