Iran’s Chief of Army Staff General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri on Monday said that if Pakistan fails to act against militant hideouts, Iranian soldiers will start targeting them. “If there are continued attacks, the terrorists’ safe havens will be targeted and crushed, wherever they are,” Bagheri was quoted as saying by IRNA news agency.
Bagheri said the Iranian armed forces will not hesitate to launch attacks in Pakistan to flush out militants, and urged Islamabad to man its borders and arrest members of terror groups. “Unfortunately, Iran’s eastern border regions with Pakistan have become a safe haven for training and equipping terrorists recruited by Saudi Arabia and supported by the United States. We will not tolerate this situation in the joint borders and expect the Pakistani officials to show responsibility,” he added.
His comments come after 10 Iranian guards were killed on the Iran-Pakistan border. The Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for the attack. The Iran-Pakistan border has witnessed unrest because of drug smuggling gangs and militants in the region.
National Security and Foreign Policy Commission chairperson Alaeddin Boroujerdi had also made similar allegations against Pakistan last month. “Given that terror cells’ safe haven is located inside Pakistan and they [militants] cross the Islamic Republic of Iran’s borders from there, undoubtedly, the Pakistani government is responsible for the bitter incident and other similar cases,” Tasnim News Agency quoted Boroujerdi as saying.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif had visited Pakistan last week and asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to improve border security. Pakistan had assured Iran that it would deploy additional troops along its border, Reuters reported.
In 2014, Iran had warned that it would send troops to Pakistan to retrieve five Iranian border guards kidnapped by the Jaish al Adl. Pakistan had said at the time that such action would be a violation of the international law and warned Iranian forces not to cross the border.
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