Friday Briefing: Pakistan Retaliates With Strikes in Iran

Pakistan announced yesterday that it had carried out strikes against what it said were terrorist hide-outs in Iran. A day earlier, Iran hit what it called militant camps in Pakistan. The military exchange is the latest example of an expanding set of hostilities connected to the Israel-Hamas war.

Pakistan indicated yesterday that it did not want its clash with Iran to escalate. The military called the two neighbors “brotherly countries,” and officials refrained from accusing Iran directly, saying that Pakistan targeted only separatists.

Iran condemned the attacks, but also appeared to try to defuse tensions. Its foreign ministry referred to Pakistan as a friendly neighbor, and added that it distinguished between the government of Pakistan, an ally, and terrorist groups operating within its borders.

Details: Iranian officials said that nine people were killed, including four children. Pakistani officials said the death toll of the Iranian strikes on Tuesday included at least two children.

Context: An emboldened Iran has been using its proxy forces against Israel and that country’s allies since the war in Gaza began. Those actions, and now its attacks on other countries in the region, have increased the risk that the conflicts in the Middle East could grow.

Houthis: The U.S. struck military sites in Yemen belonging to the group, an Iran-backed militia, for a fifth time in a week.

New documents indicate that Chinese scientists sent eight pages of the coronavirus’s genetic code to a U.S. genetic data repository in late December 2019. The information was revealed for the first time in documents released this week by House Republicans investigating Covid’s origins.

The U.S.-run repository, designed to help scientists share