Armed men attacked a house in southeastern Iran this Saturday, killing nine foreigners, a media report said, a week after deadly clashes between Iran and Pakistan in the troubled border region. “According to witnesses, gunmen killed nine non-Iranians in a house near the city of Sarwan, in Sistan-Baluchistan province,” the Mehr agency reported.
According to the agency, no group has claimed responsibility for this morning attack.
Iran and Pakistan frequently accuse each other of allowing insurgent groups to launch attacks from each other’s territory. On 16 January, Iran launched a missile and drone strike against a “terrorist” group on Pakistani soil, which responded on 18 January by targeting “terrorist hideouts” in Iran. According to officials, a total of 11 people, mostly women and children, were killed in the two attacks.
A warning was quickly extinguished
They sparked a brief diplomatic crisis, with Pakistan recalling its ambassador to Tehran and announcing that the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, who was in the country, would be prevented from returning to Islamabad. The reciprocal bombings also raised concerns in the international community at a time when the Middle East has been rocked by the war between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
But the two countries then announced, on January 22, a normalization of their relations and the upcoming visit of Iranian diplomatic chief Hossein Amir-Abdollahian to Islamabad.
