ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani foreign office on Friday said it had taken up with the Iranian embassy in Islamabad a statement by an Iranian official accusing Pakistani security forces of shooting at oil smugglers earlier this week and said the allegation was “factually incorrect.”
According to Human Rights Watch, the incident took place on Monday near the Iranian town of Saravan, killing 10 people and injuring five.
Following the development, Iran’s deputy governor of Sistan-Baluchistan province, Mohammad Hadi Marashi, accused Pakistani forces of opening fire at a gathering of fuel smugglers near the border who, he claimed, were trying to cross back into Iran.
“We are aware of the statement, which is factually incorrect,” foreign office spokesperson Zahid Hafeez Chaudhri told media during a press briefing in Islamabad.
“We have taken up the matter with the Iranian embassy [in Islamabad] about the statement made by the deputy governor of Sistan-Baluchistan province of Iran.”
“The incident occurred on the Iranian side of the border,” he said.
Pakistan has set aside nearly $20 million to fence its 900-kilometer border with Iran, frequently used for trade and by minority Shia Muslims who travel from Pakistan to Iran for religious pilgrimages. But the border is also the entry point for cross-border militancy and for an illegal fuel trade that authorities have struggled to crackdown on for decades.
“Such unfortunate incidents validate the need to have more formal ways to increase trading opportunities for local people,” the foreign office spokesperson said, adding that Pakistan viewed its border with Iran as a model for peace and security.
“We remain engaged with Iranian officials to discuss ways and means of facilitating cross-border commerce for local people living on both sides of the border and ensure the security of our common frontier,” he said.
According to AFP, Iran was also prodded by Human Rights Watch on Friday to investigate excessive use of force by Revolutionary Guards against smugglers attempting to transport fuel to Pakistan.
Quoting Baluch activists, the rights group claimed that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had blocked a road used to transport fuel before apparently opening fire at people attempting to reopen the route.
The action prompted attacks by angry protesters on government buildings in both Saravan and the Sistan-Baluchistan provincial capital Zahedan.
“The Iranian authorities should urgently conduct a transparent and impartial investigation into the shootings at the Saravan border,” said HRW Iran researcher Tara Sepehri Far. “The authorities should hold those responsible for wrongdoing to account, appropriately compensate victims and ensure that border guards are taking the utmost precautions to respect the right to life and other human rights.”
The rights group noted the lack of employment opportunities in the province, saying it left its ethnic Baluch population with few alternatives but to indulge in illegal trade with their fellow Balochs across the border.
“Similar to the western provinces of Western Azerbaijan and Kurdistan [on the border with Iraq], its lack of economic opportunities has led many residents to engage in unlawful cross-border commerce with Pakistan,” said the New York-based watchdog.
Pakistan raises ‘factually incorrect’ Iranian allegations of oil smuggler shooting with embassy
https://arab.news/b8c63
Pakistan raises ‘factually incorrect’ Iranian allegations of oil smuggler shooting with embassy
- Deputy governor of Sistan-Baluchistan province accused Pakistani forces of firing at gathering of fuel smugglers near the border
- Human Rights Watch blames the incident on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, urges Tehran to conduct a transparent inquiry
‘Look ahead or look up?’: Pakistan’s police face new challenge as militants take to drone warfare
- Officials say militants are using weapons and equipment left behind after allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan
- Police in northwest Pakistan say electronic jammers have helped repel more than 300 drone attacks since mid-2025
BANNU, Pakistan: On a quiet morning last July, Constable Hazrat Ali had just finished his prayers at the Miryan police station in Pakistan’s volatile northwest when the shouting began.
His colleagues in Bannu district spotted a small speck in the sky. Before Ali could take cover, an explosion tore through the compound behind him. It was not a mortar or a suicide vest, but an improvised explosive dropped from a drone.
“Now should we look ahead or look up [to sky]?” said Ali, who was wounded again in a second drone strike during an operation against militants last month. He still carries shrapnel scars on his back, hand and foot, physical reminders of how the battlefield has shifted upward.
For police in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, the fight against militancy has become a three-dimensional conflict. Pakistani officials say armed groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are increasingly deploying commercial drones modified to drop explosives, alongside other weapons they say were acquired after the US military withdrawal from neighboring Afghanistan.
Security analysts say the trend mirrors a wider global pattern, where low-cost, commercially available drones are being repurposed by non-state actors from the Middle East to Eastern Europe, challenging traditional policing and counterinsurgency tactics.
The escalation comes as militant violence has surged across Pakistan. Islamabad-based Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) reported a 73 percent rise in combat-related deaths in 2025, with fatalities climbing to 3,387 from 1,950 a year earlier. Militants have increasingly shifted operations from northern tribal belts to southern KP districts such as Bannu, Lakki Marwat and Dera Ismail Khan.
“Bannu is an important town of southern KP, and we are feeling the heat,” said Sajjad Khan, the region’s police chief. “There has been an enormous increase in the number of incidents of terrorism… It is a mix of local militants and Afghan militants.”
In 2025 alone, Bannu police recorded 134 attacks on stations, checkpoints and personnel. At least 27 police officers were killed, while authorities say 53 militants died in the clashes. Many assaults involved coordinated, multi-pronged attacks using heavy weapons.
Drones have also added a new layer of danger. What began as reconnaissance tools have been weaponized with improvised devices that rely on gravity rather than guidance systems.
“Earlier, they used to drop [explosives] in bottles. After that, they started cutting pipes for this purpose,” said Jamshed Khan, head of the regional bomb disposal unit. “Now we have encountered a new type: a pistol hand grenade.”
When dropped from above, he explained, a metal pin ignites the charge on impact.
Deputy Superintendent of Police Raza Khan, who narrowly survived a drone strike during construction at a checkpoint, described devices packed with nails, bullets and metal fragments.
“They attach a shuttlecock-like piece on top. When they drop it from a height, its direction remains straight toward the ground,” he said.
TARGETING CIVILIANS
Officials say militants’ rapid adoption of drone technology has been fueled by access to equipment on informal markets, while police procurement remains slower.
“It is easy for militants to get such things,” Sajjad Khan said. “And for us, I mean, we have to go through certain process and procedures as per rules.”
That imbalance began to shift in mid-2025, when authorities deployed electronic anti-drone systems in the region. Before that, officers relied on snipers or improvised nets strung over police compounds.
“Initially, when we did not have that anti-drone system, their strikes were effective,” the police chief said, adding that more than 300 attempted drone attacks have since been repelled or electronically disrupted. “That was a decisive moment.”
Police say militants have also targeted civilians, killing nine people in drone attacks this year, often in communities accused of cooperating with authorities. Several police stations suffered structural damage.
Bannu’s location as a gateway between Pakistan and Afghanistan has made it a security flashpoint since colonial times. But officials say the aerial dimension of the conflict has placed unprecedented strain on local forces.
For constables like Hazrat Ali, new technology offers some protection, but resolve remains central.
“Nowadays, they have ammunition and all kinds of the most modern weapons. They also have large drones,” he said. “When we fight them, we fight with our courage and determination.”
