The Tehran regime sends the message to the world that it can take revenge for any aggression and do it almost anywhere. Iranian missiles and drones fell yesterday morning for the first time on Pakistani territory, despite the fact that relations between the two neighboring countries are good, to the point that their respective navies held joint naval maneuvers on Tuesday in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
Without prior warning, Islamabad has protested, Iran attacked Yaish al Adl (or Justice Army) bases in Koh-i-Sabaz, about 50 kilometers inside the Pakistani border, in the province of Balochistan, causing four deaths. . It is a Sunni group classified as “terrorist” by the United States and, of course, by Iran, which demands the independence of Balochistan, a region divided between Iran and Pakistan, and which confronts the armed forces of both countries. This attack constituted the continuation of two others launched the day before – also with missiles and drones – on the Syrian province of Idlib, against jihadist groups, and on Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Pakistani Government protested yesterday against the violation of its territory and called its ambassador in Tehran for consultations, as is required. And, after a telephone conversation between the respective Foreign Ministers, he noted that the attack seriously damaged relations between both countries and reserved the “right to respond.”
Iran's argument cannot be surprising: its objective was Iranian terrorists hiding in Pakistan and in fact it has been well aware of them acting as the United States usually does even in an allied country, an excuse that undoubtedly evoked the recent case of the assassination with a drone in the very Baghdad Defense complex of a leader of the Iraqi Shiite militias, therefore a member of the “Axis of Resistance” against Israel sponsored by Tehran.
Iran would be taking revenge for several incidents: the assault on a police station in Rask, in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan, in December, which was assumed by Yaish al Adl (just yesterday, a colonel of the Revolutionary Guard was killed by shots in the province); the double attack in the city of Kerman, which caused 84 deaths on January 3, attributed to the Islamic State, and of course several deaths of commanders of the Revolutionary Guard and the “Axis of Resistance”. In all of them, Tehran sees behind it the hand of Israel, the United States, or both. The attack on jihadists in Syria on Tuesday is part of the same context, and even the bombing in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which killed the powerful real estate businessman Peshraw Dizayi and his 11-month-old daughter. According to Irbil authorities, Dizayi had nothing to do with the Israeli Mossad, and Washington immediately called the attack “reckless and imprecise.”
It can be understood that the Iranian regime needs to stick out its chest, particularly for internal propaganda consumption, but also in the face of its allies in the “Axis of Resistance.” However, his Foreign Minister, Hosein Amirabdolahian, with whom the prime minister of the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish Government, Masrour Barzani, refused to meet during the World Economic Forum in Davos, stated in an interview in the Swiss city, according to the Efe agency, that “the operations of the last 24 hours have nothing to do with what is happening in Gaza.”
That is to say, once again Iran claims not to seek escalation in the region in defense of the Palestinians but rather to be defending itself, responding in each place to concrete facts: the death of its men in Iraq, the alleged support for the Islamic State by Al Qaeda groups in Syria or the attacks by independentists in their province of Sistan-Baluchistan.
“We launched missile attacks on Mossad-linked facilities in Irbil, without the intention of harming Iraq,” Amirabdolahian said. And he added, to the surprise of everyone and everyone: “What we did was in accordance with the security of Iraq, Pakistan and the entire region.”
Of course, the Government of Islamabad also has the Baloch “terrorists” as enemies, and as for the Government of Baghdad, its hands are tied by the enormous influence of the Shiites and their militias to raise their voice, and Tehran has free field to wage its confrontation there with the United States and Israel, but Tehran's latest action does not exactly call for calm. After all, Pakistan is a nuclear power and Iranian missiles and drones broke into its territory cleanly, something that comes close to humiliation. Both countries are members of the Shanghai Group, and China urged them yesterday to “avoid actions that could exacerbate tensions.”
In any case, it cannot be ruled out that the last blows at the table will not come free for Tehran.
