Pakistan condemns terror attacks on Iranian Police Headquarters

Pakistan’s foreign office on Thursday issued a statement in condemnation of terror attacks in Iran which killed 10 Iranian security personnel.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that “Pakistan unequivocally condemns the heinous and dastardly terrorist attacks at police and security installations in the cities of Rask and Chabahar in Iran.”

The ministry extended condolences to the families of the victims and prayed for the recovery of the injured.

This development comes after terror attacks in southeastern Iran near Pakistan killed 10 Iranian security personnel, Iranian state media reported on Thursday, doubling an earlier toll.

The death toll is nearly identical to that of a similar incident in December, which was claimed by the same organization and followed by tit-for-tat air attacks on neighboring Pakistan.

The attacks took place in Sistan-Balochistan province, which has been plagued by violence caused by drug gangs, Baluchi rebels, and extremists for many years.

Majid Mirahmadi, vice-minister of the interior, had earlier told the channel that five members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the police died during two night-time attacks against a Guards base in Rask and a police post in Chabahar.

The number of assailants killed in the clashes also rose from the 15 which General Mohammad Pakpour, who heads the Guards’ land forces, had announced on television.

The Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice, in Arabic) group claimed the attacks on its Telegram channel.

Jaish al-Adl claimed an attack in December that killed 11 officers, one of the deadliest attacks in years, at a police station in Sistan-Balochistan’s city of Rask.

The group claimed another police station attack in Rask that killed one officer on January 10.

A week later, Iran said it retaliated with missiles and drone strikes against Jaish al-Adl over the border in Pakistan. Pakistan then said it carried out air strikes against ethnic separatists inside Iran.

The Iranian strikes killed at least two children, according to Pakistan, while Pakistan’s strikes left at least nine people dead in Iran, according to the official IRNA news agency.

The rare cross-border fire added to regional tensions during the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, but by late January the two countries sought to ease the pressure.

The porous border region of Balochistan is split between Iran and Pakistan.