Tel Aviv — Tension fueled by the Israel-Hamas war was broadening across the Middle East and beyond Wednesday, as U.S. ally Pakistan condemned its neighbor Iran for launching what Pakistani officials called an unprovoked attack on their territory. Iran said its Revolutionary Guard struck bases of the Sunni Muslim militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan, but Islamabad angrily condemned the attack as a “blatant violation” of its airspace and said two children were killed in the strikes.
A local police officer told CBS News’ Sami Yousafzai that two women injured in the strikes were brought to a regional hospital, along with the bodies of the two slain children, as rescuers sifted through the debris searching for any other victims. esident Abdul Baluch told CBS News the strikes hit a village called Sabz Koh, near the Iranian border.We heard the blasts and sound of missiles,” he said, adding that the houses targeted were near his home, and that he had never “seen any kind of military activists” in the area over the last five years.
A spokesperson for the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement Tuesday that it was “even more concerning that this illegal act has taken place despite the existence of several channels of communication between Pakistan and Iran,” adding that “Pakistan’s strong protest has already been lodged with the concerned senior official in the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran.”
Pakistan later recalled its ambassador from Tehran and expelled the Iranian ambassador in Islamabad.
The Iranian strikes, which officials in Tehran claimed had only killed Iranian nationals who were members of the militant group, came just a day after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard fired missiles at targets in Iraq and Syria, with Tehran claiming those were also against “anti-Iran groups” operating in the region.
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