Fears of wider conflict as Pak strikes back at Iran

Pakistan launched retaliatory airstrikes early on Thursday in Iran against alleged militant hideouts, killing at least nine people and further raising tensions between the neighbours, even as West Asia remains unsettled by Israel's war with the Hamas group in the Gaza Strip.

Thursday's attack followed one by Iran inside Pakistan on Tuesday. Both appeared to target Baloch militant groups with similar separatist goals on either side of the Iran-Pakistan border. The countries accuse each other of providing safe haven to the groups in their respective territories.

The strikes are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years and come amid growing worries about instability in West Asia since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on October 7. Iran also staged airstrikes late on Monday in Iraq and Syria over an Islamic State-claimed suicide bombing that killed over 90 people in early January.

"A number of terrorists were killed during the intelligencebased operation," Pakistan's foreign ministry said on Thursday, describing it as a "series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts".

"The sole objective of today's act was in pursuit of Pakistan's own security and national interest, which is paramount and cannot be compromised," the ministry added.

A senior Pakistani security official told Reuters the military was on "extremely" high alert and would meet any "misadventure" from the Iranian side forcefully.

Tehran strongly condemned the strikes, saying civilians were killed, and summoned Pakistan's charge d'affaires, its most senior diplomat in Iran, to give an explanation.