Pakistan: Review Iran Standoff
Sudan Events – Sumaya Sayed
Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders carry out a security review on Friday on the standoff with Iran, the information minister said, after the neighbours carried out drone and missile strikes on militant bases on each other’s territory.
Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar will chair a meeting of the National Security Committee, with all the military services chiefs in attendance, the minister, Murtaza Solangi, said.
It aims at a “broad national security review in the aftermath of the Iran-Pakistan incidents”, Solangi said. Kakar cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and flew home on Thursday.
The tit-for-tat strikes by the two countries are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years and have raised alarm about wider instability in the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7.
However, both sides have already signalled a desire to cool tensions, although they have had a history of rocky relations.
Iran said Thursday’s strikes killed nine people in a border village on its territory, including four children. Pakistan said the Iranian attack on Tuesday killed two children.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the two nations to exercise maximum restraint. The U.S. also urged restraint although President Joe Biden said the clashes showed that Iran is not well liked in the region.
Islamabad said it hit bases of the separatist Baloch Liberation Front and Baloch Liberation Army, while Tehran said its drones and missiles targeted militants from the Jaish al Adl (JAA) group.
The groups which Islamabad targeted inside Iran have been waging an armed insurgency for decades against the Pakistani state, including attacks against Chinese citizens and investments in Balochistan.
