Missile attack from Pakistan kills 3 women, 4 children in Iran: State media

At least three women and four children were killed on Thursday in a missile attack by Pakistan on Iran’s southeast border region, Iranian state media reported.

“Pakistan attacked an Iranian border village with missiles,” state television said, quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province.

“Three women and four children children were killed in this incident. All non-Iranian nationals,” he added.

The attack targeted a village near the city of Saravan, on the border with Pakistan, he noted.

Iran’s Mehr news agency had earlier reported “drone and missile attacks” in the restive region, saying “several” people were injured.

The missile strike took place two days after Iran carried out strikes against “terrorist” targets in Pakistan which left at least two children dead.

On Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran targeted an “Iranian terrorist group” in Pakistan.

He said the strikes were in response to deadly attacks in Iran’s southeast by the jihadist group Jaish al-Adl, a group formed in 2012 and blacklisted by Tehran as a “terrorist” organisation.

“None of the nationals of the friendly and brotherly country of Pakistan were targeted by Iranian missiles and drones,” Abollahian said.

Pakistan on Wednesday denounced the strikes near the countries’ shared border, recalled its ambassador from Iran and blocked Tehran’s envoy from returning to Islamabad.

On 10 January, Jaish al-Adl claimed at attack on a police station in the southeastern city of Rask which killed one officer. The group had carried out a similar attack in December killing 11 police officers.

On Wednesday, the group said it killed a member of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to IRNA.