Iran launched attacks Tuesday in Pakistan targeting what it described as bases for the militant group Jaish al-Adl, state media reported, potentially further raising tensions in a Middle East already roiled by Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Confusion followed the announcements as some of the reports soon disappeared. However, any attack inside of nuclear-armed Pakistan by Iran would threaten the relations between the two countries, which long have eyed each other with suspicion while maintaining diplomatic relations.
The state-run IRNA news agency and state television had said that missiles and drones were used in the attack, which was not immediately acknowledged by Pakistan.
Jaish al-Adl, or the “Army of Justice,” is a Sunni militant group founded in 2012 which largely operates across the border in Pakistan. Iran has fought in border areas against the militants, but a missile-and-drone attack on Pakistan would be unprecedented for Iran.
The militants have claimed bombings and kidnapped Iranian border police in the past.
The state media reports were then suddenly removed without explanation, though the semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies still ran nearly identical stories on their websites Tuesday night. Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state television, later attributed the attack to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
