ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders will carry out a security review on Friday on the standoff with Iran, the information minister said, after the neighbors carried out drone and missile strikes on militant bases in each other’s territory.
Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar will chair a meeting of the National Security Committee, with all the military services chiefs in attendance, the minister, Murtaza Solangi, told Reuters by telephone.
It aims at a “broad national security review in the aftermath of the Iran-Pakistan incidents,” Solangi said. Kakar cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and flew home on Thursday.
The tit-for-tat strikes by the two countries are the highest-profile cross-border intrusions in recent years and have raised alarm about wider instability in the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted on Oct. 7.
However, both sides have already signalled a desire to cool tensions, the highest in years, although they have had a history of rocky relations.
Iran said Thursday’s strikes killed nine people in a border village on its territory, including four children. Pakistan said the Iranian attack on Tuesday killed two children.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the two nations to exercise maximum restraint. The US also urged restraint although President Joe Biden said the clashes showed that Iran is not well liked in the region.
Islamabad said it hit bases of the separatist Baloch Liberation Front and Baloch Liberation Army, while Tehran said its drones and missiles targeted militants from the Jaish al Adl (JAA), a third group.
The targeted militant groups operate in an area that includes Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan and Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province. Both are restive, mineral-rich and largely underdeveloped.
The groups which Islamabad targeted inside Iran have been waging an armed insurgency for decades against the Pakistani state, including attacks against Chinese citizens and investments in Balochistan.
The JAA, which Iran targeted, is also an ethnic militant group, but with Sunni Islamist leanings that primarily Shiite Iran sees as a threat.
The group, which has had links to Islamic State, has carried out attacks in Iran against its powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Against the backdrop of the war in Gaza, Iran and its allies had been flexing their muscles in the region, even before its cross-border incursion into Pakistan.
Iran launched strikes on Syria against what Tehran said were Islamic State sites, and Iraq, where it said it had struck an Israeli espionage center.
The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen have targeted shipping in the Red Sea since November, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
Pakistan’s civil, military leaders to review Iran standoff — minister
https://arab.news/4tc8a
Pakistan’s civil, military leaders to review Iran standoff — minister
- Neighbours carried out drone and missile strikes on militant bases in each other’s territory this week
- PM Kakar cut short a visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos and flew home on Thursday
At least one killed, nine injured in IED blast in northwestern Pakistan
- Blast takes place near vehicle carrying employees of Lucky Cement factory in Lakki Marwat district, say police
- No group has claimed responsibility for IED blast as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police launch probe into the incident
PESHAWAR: At least one person was killed and nine others were injured in Pakistan’s northwestern Lakki Marwat district on Monday after an improvised explosive device (IED) blast occurred near a vehicle transporting employees of a cement factory, a police official said.
Lakki Marwat police official Shahid Marwat told Arab News the blast took place on the district’s Begu Khel Road at around 6:30 a.m. The explosion occurred near a vehicle carrying employees of the Lucky Cement factory located in the district, he said.
“Initial investigations suggest the device had been planted by militants,” Marwat said. “A rapid police response force was immediately deployed to the scene to evacuate the dead and wounded, secure the area and collect evidence.”
The police officer said several victims were in critical condition and were referred for treatment to the nearby Bannu district, adding that all those affected by the blast were residents of Begu Khel village.
He said police had launched an investigation into the incident.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack. However, the Pakistani Taliban, or the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), have claimed responsibility for similar attacks in the past against Pakistani law enforcers and civilians in the province.
The TTP has carried out some of the deadliest attacks against Pakistani law enforcers since 2008 in its bid to impose its own brand of strict Islamic law across the country.
The attack comes as Pakistan struggles to contain a sharp surge in militant violence in recent months. According to statistics released last month by the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), combat-related deaths in 2025 rose by 73 percent to 3,387, compared with 1,950 deaths in 2024.
These deaths included 2,115 militants, 664 security forces personnel, 580 civilians, and 28 members of pro-government peace committees, the think tank said. Most of the attacks took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Pashtun-majority districts and southwestern Balochistan province, the PICSS noted.
On Sunday, three traffic police officials were shot dead by unidentified gunmen in Lakki Marwat district. No group claimed responsibility for the incident.
Islamabad accuses the Afghan government of harboring militants who launch attacks against Pakistan, a charge Kabul repeatedly denies. The surge in militant attacks in Pakistan has strained ties between the two neighbors, with Islamabad urging Kabul to take steps to dismantle militant outfits allegedly operating from its soil.
