Why Pakistan and Iran Attacked Each Other

Relations between Pakistan and Iran have by and large been cordial, although they’ve sparred intermittently over attacks by militants along their porous 900-kilometer-long (560-mile-long) border. Tensions have flared anew, with the two Muslim nations conducting strikes in each other’s territories. The first attack, from Iran, came shortly after it had fired missiles at what it alleged was an Israeli spy base in Iraq and at Islamic State targets in Syria — a notable show of force after Iranian targets had come under assault. Altogether, the violence elevated concerns about a wider conflagration erupting in the Middle East as the war between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas continues.

Iran fired missiles and sent drones into the Balochistan region in western Pakistan on Jan. 16. Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that two bases belonging to the militant separatist group Jaish al-Adl were destroyed. The Sunni group’s members are drawn from the ethnic Baloch people living on both sides of the border. Pakistan said the strike killed two children and injured three others, and described it as an “unprovoked and blatant breach” of its sovereignty. Two days later, its military used rockets and drones to target several sites in Iran that it said were being used as hideouts by two other Baloch militant groups — the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front — that it blamed for recent attacks on its territory. Pakistan said a number of terrorists had been killed; Iran said as many as nine foreigners died, including four children.