JERUSALEM (AP) — Iran launched attacks Tuesday in Pakistan targeting what it described as bases for the armed group Jaish al-Adl, state media reported, potentially raising tensions in a Middle East already troubled by Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
These announcements were followed by confusion as some reports soon disappeared. However, an attack inside nuclear-armed Pakistan by Iran would threaten relations between the two countries, which have long viewed each other with suspicion.
The Islamic Republic of Iran news agency and state television said missiles and drones were used in the attack, which Pakistan did not immediately acknowledge. Jaish al-Adl is a Sunni militant group that operates largely across the border in Pakistan.
The reports were then abruptly removed without explanation, although the semi-official Fars and Tasnim news agencies were still publishing almost identical stories on their websites on Tuesday night. Press TV, the English-language arm of Iranian state television, later attributed the attack to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The authorities offered no explanation for what was happening, although sensitive stories in Iran can suddenly disappear from state media.
Officials in Pakistan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Late Monday, Iran fired missiles into Iraq at what it described as an Israeli “spy headquarters” near the US consulate complex in the city of Erbil, the headquarters of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, and at targets linked to the extremist Islamic State group. In northern Syria.
Iraq on Tuesday described the attacks, which killed several civilians, as a “flagrant violation” of Iraqi sovereignty and recalled its ambassador from Tehran.
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