Pakistan Retaliates With Strikes Inside Iran as Tensions Spill Over

In an expansion of hostilities rippling out from the Israel-Hamas war, Pakistan said on Thursday that it had carried out strikes inside Iran. The military action came a day after Iranian forces attacked what they said were militant camps in Pakistan.

The Pakistani Foreign Affairs Ministry said that the country’s forces had conducted “precision military strikes” against what it called terrorist hide-outs in southeastern Iran. A number of militants were killed, the ministry said in a statement.

A senior Pakistani security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Pakistan had struck at least seven locations used by Baluch separatists about 30 miles inside the border. The official said that air force fighter jets and drones were used in the Pakistani retaliatory strikes.

A day before, Iran conducted an airstrike in Baluchistan Province in Pakistan. The Iranian government later said that the strike in Pakistan, as well as attacks it conducted in Iraq and Syria, showed that Iran would hit back forcefully at enemies anywhere.

An emboldened Iran has been using its proxy forces against Israel and its allies since the war in Gaza began in October. Those actions, and now the attacks by Iran itself on other countries in the region, have increased the risk that the upheaval washing over the Middle East could grow. Iran has been trying to project strength after recent attacks inside its borders had made it look vulnerable.

Iranian officials said that the attack in Pakistan had been aimed at militants who threatened Iran, but the Pakistani authorities rejected that account, citing what it said were civilian casualties from the strike.

Pakistan denounced the Iranian strike as a blatant violation of international law and