Iran’s Air Defense Plan for Velayat 1402, a Cold War Exercise in the Balochistan Protocluster, Revisited
China urged restraint in both countries. Beijing is a key player in the Belt and Road project and has a port in Pakistan. Baloch, the Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said she was not aware of any direct Chinese mediation in the conflict so far.
There are also complex considerations related to the situation. Pakistan’s military relies on American, Chinese and French fighter jets for its air force — meaning some of those foreign weapons were used in Thursday’s attack.
“The government and military have been under immense pressure,” said Abdullah Khan, an analyst at the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies. “Pakistan’s public perception of a strong army is not as it used to be, so it had to respond, and Iran celebrated Tuesday’s attack in its media.”
For both Iran and Pakistan, the cross-border attacks renew questions about the preparedness of their own militaries, particularly their radar and air defense systems.
Iran and Pakistan share a 900-kilometer (560-mile), largely lawless border in which smugglers and militants freely pass between the two nations. Afghanistan has a key route for opium shipments around the world.
The risk of an incident remained Thursday, as Iran’s military began a planned air defense drill from its port of Chabahar near Pakistan to Iraq. The drill, Velayat 1402, will include live fire from aircraft, drones and air defense systems.
The Baluch Liberation Army, formed in 2000 and has launched attacks against Pakistan’s security force and Chinese interests, might be hiding out in Iran.
On Tuesday, Iran fired missiles and drones into Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, saying it was targeting a separatist hard-line Sunni Muslim group called Jaish al-Adl.
The attacks took place in an area called Balochistan, a large region straddling Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The region has been used as a base to attack Iran and Pakistan by both groups, according to the NPR report. Iran has conducted incursions into Pakistan’s Balochistan province before in pursuit of militants.
Tehran strongly condemned the attack and demanded an explanation from Pakistan, according to Iran’s state television.
Israel’s Marg Bar Sarmachar campaign in the Baluch Republic: “America will not be silent again”, warned a spokesman of the Liberation Army
HalVash, an advocacy group for the Baluch people, shared images online that appeared to show the remains of the munitions used in the attack. It said a number of homes had been struck in Saravan. It shared videos showing a mud-walled building destroyed and smoke rising over the strike immediately after.
A deputy governor of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province, Ali Reza Marhamati, gave the casualty figures from Thursday’s strike in a telephone interview, saying the dead included three women and four children near the town of Saravan along the border in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province. He added that the dead were not Iranian citizens and acknowledged a separate blast near Saravan as well.
Pakistan named its operation “Marg Bar Sarmachar.” In Iranian Farsi, “marg bar” means “death to” — and is a famous saying in Iran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution used to refer to both the United States and Israel. In the local Baluch language, “sarmachar” means guerrilla and is used by the militants operating in the cross-border region.
Pakistan will have to pay for it, the group warned. The Baluch Liberation Army will not be silent anymore. We will announce a war on Pakistan once we avenge it.
Iran’s attacks on a Balochistan separatist group in the region of the Gaza Strip and the threat of a new front in the Middle East
Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Anwaarul-Haq-Kakar, is in Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum and decided to cut his trip short. Jalil Abbas Jilani is returning home from Uganda.
The attacks also raised the threat of violence spreading in a Middle East unsettled by Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Iran launched strikes in Iraq and Syria late Monday over a suicide bombing that killed over 90 people. Iraq has recalled its ambassador from Iran for consultations.
Relations between Pakistan and Iran have long been suspect of militant attacks and the strikes are likely to hurt those ties.
Pakistan launched an attack Thursday using rockets and drones against a Balochistan separatist group inside neighboring Iran, killing nine people, just two days after Iran fired rockets at a rival separatist group on Pakistan’s side of the border.
Iran often chooses to use its proxy forces in the Middle East to carry out attacks on its enemies. Hezbollah is a powerful militia in Lebanon. The UN has called for an end to the missile attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea by the Houthis in Yemen. Israeli officials said 1,200 people were killed in the October 7th attack by Hamas. The Health Ministry in Gaza says there are more than 24,000 dead in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
With tensions sky-high in a tinderbox region — and with a war in full spate in Gaza — the risk of another front opening up is constant, especially with a large variety of proxies, extremist groups and long-standing enemies facing off in a number of countries. Hezbollah and Israel have been fighting across the Lebanon-Israel border for weeks, raising the possibility of a new front in the war.