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Analysis

Are Tehran’s internal politics at play in Iran-Pakistan flare-up?

Although internal political considerations may have led Tehran to conduct airstrikes in Pakistan, ties between the two are likely to suffer lasting damage.
Members of Iranian paramilitary's Basij forces march next to the fourth generation Khorramshahr ballistic missile Khaibar displayed during an anti-Israeli rally to show their solidarity with Palestinians, in Tehran on November 24, 2023. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)

KARACHI — Pakistan said on Thursday that it had carried out a series of “precision military strikes” against “terrorist hide-outs” in southeastern Iran, just two days after Tehran conducted strikes reportedly targeting militants in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province.

Thursday’s strikes, which hit sites near the city of Saravan, in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province, killed nine people, according to Iranian authorities. 

Pakistan's military operation, codenamed Death to Guerrilla Fighters, was the first missile attack on Iran by a neighboring state since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, in 1988. 

Notably, it is also the first time that Islamabad has resorted to such an attack against any country apart from India, with which it has fought four major wars. 

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