#Pakistan is coming down hard on #Iran! On his recent visit, Iran’s interior minister Ahmad Vahidi was given the message that we know [about the use of Iranian soil by #Baloch insurgents]. If there are more attacks, we will take decisive action. @TRTWorld https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/why-pakistan-is-coming-down-hard-...

The country’s overstretched patience with its southwestern neighbour is wearing thin over the Baloch insurgency.
In the dead of night on January 25, dozens of militants bearing advanced assault rifles and night-vision devices swooped down on a solitary paramilitary checkpost in Kech, some 180 km from Pakistan’s border with Iran, in the southwestern province of Balochistan. The sudden assault lasted for more than five hours, claiming the lives of 10 Pakistani troopers. The attackers reportedly fled to Iran.

The attack was later claimed by the Baloch Liberation Front (BLF), one of the most lethal Baloch separatist groups stoking a decades-long armed struggle against the Pakistan Army, which operates out of southeastern Iran.

While relations between Iran and Pakistan have steadily deteriorated over cross-border militancy in the past few years, analysts assess that the sharp increase in terrorist attacks since last year, mainly in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, has put the country's security establishment on tenterhooks.

Three days after the attack in Kech, Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency stumbled upon a surprising discovery in the backroom of a money exchange company in Karachi. They found a network funneling millions of rupees from "a foreign intelligence agency" to proscribed militant groups in the country. Thirteen employees were rounded up, and days later, a senior bureaucrat was arrested in connection with the raid.

While the foreign intelligence agency behind the racket was barely identified in press conferences and local media coverage, a senior security official, on condition of anonymity, confirmed to TRT World that it belonged to Iran.

Then, on February 2, a coordinated attack on the paramilitary Frontier Corps headquarters in the towns of Panjgur and Noshki — areas close to the Iran border and the Baloch-majority regions in Afghanistan, respectively —stunned the nation. It took the army three days to clear the sites of the suicide attackers who, it said, were trained in Afghanistan by the Indian intelligence.

On February 14, Iran’s interior minister Ahmad Vahidi arrived in Islamabad for a day-long visit with the Commander of the Iranian Border Guards, Brigadier General Ahmad Ali Goudarzi, among other high-ranking officials.

While Pakistani leadership hailed the historic “brotherly ties” with Iran, privately the delegation was given a stern warning: “He was given the message that we know [about the use of Iranian soil by Baloch insurgents]. If there are more attacks, we will take decisive action,” says the security official, who is privy to details of the meeting.

The tri-border region of Nimroz in Afghanistan, an ethnic Baloch-dominated province straddling Pakistan and Iran in the south, is notorious for its powerful smuggling rackets dealing in weapons, opium, and human trafficking. To its east is the Helmand province, where vast poppy fields feed the global opium trade. This is also the region, along with Kandahar to its east, that welcomed fleeing Baloch brethren when former President General Pervez Musharraf ordered a military operation against Baloch insurgents in 2006. Many Baloch separatist leaders coordinated attacks on Pakistani security personnel and Chinese investments in Balochistan during the Afghan war.

When the Taliban took Kabul last year, they launched a swift crackdown on Baloch refugees and handed over many dissidents to the Pakistani authorities. Many Baloch rebels had already gone into hiding after assassination attempts in Kandahar, allegedly ordered by Pakistani officials over the past two years.

#Pakistan's arrest of anti-#China militant felt from #Beijing to #Tehran. "Pakistan hopes that China will put pressure on #Iran over the issue of its support of #Baloch militancy" #CPEC #SaudiArabia #India - Nikkei Asia https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Terrorism/Pakistan-s-arrest-of-ant...

Meanwhile, Imam's arrest, the details of which remain a mystery, could have geopolitical implications. Although the BNA says he was caught in Turkey, most experts and security officials interviewed by Nikkei agree he had been operating out of Iran.

Kiyya Baloch believes it is no accident that Imam's detention was announced as Beijing brokers an Iran-Saudi rapprochement. "Pakistan hopes that China will put pressure on Tehran over the issue of support of Baloch militancy through its newly formed role of a peace broker," he added.

Experts say Tehran does not consider anti-Islamabad groups enemies and sees them as potentially useful allies against other hostile groups. But Luke Przybyszewski, president of the Abhaseed Foundation Fund, a Polish group of Middle East experts, said the situation presented by the arrest of Imam has created some room for mediation by Beijing.

"It's not a black-and-white situation in which Beijing would resort to just disciplining Iran," he told Nikkei, "but rather could see this as another diplomatic opportunity to increase its regional role."

Przemyslaw Lesinski, an expert on Afghanistan and Iran at the War Studies Academy in Warsaw, said Beijing would like to see regional proxy conflicts come to an end. "We can be quite certain that China will put pressure not only on Iran but also on other [players] in the region, too," he said, suggesting Beijing would be a beneficiary of security cooperation between Tehran and Islamabad.

Israel may have killed dozens of senior Iranian officials, with Ali Khamenei as top target

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-888302

Among those targeted were aides Ali Larijani and Ali Shamkhani, IRGC chiefs including Esmail Qaani, and the Iranian defense minister • Israel targeted assassinations as US focused elsewhere

Up to dozens of top Iranian officials may have been assassinated collectively at a few different meetings on Saturday, with indications that Israel focused on this part of the joint US-Israel bombings on Saturday, while American forces focused on other issues, such as attacking the ballistic missile apparatus, naval targets, and nuclear targets.

The top targeted official is Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Israeli confidence has grown over the course of the day that he has been assassinated, though it is not yet definitive.

His well-known command center in Tehran was bombed, but reports were that he was not there.

However, in June 2025, Israel managed to assassinate top Iranian officials also at their backup secret locations.

Ali Larijani, Ali Shamkhani among Khamenei aides targeted
Ali Larijani, who has been Khamenei's stand-in to run the country in recent weeks, as the ayatollah went underground to try to avoid assassination, may also have been killed.

Ali Shamkhani, another top security aide to Khamenei for over a decade, may also have been killed, though he was also thought to be killed in the June 2025 Operation, and at that time survived.

Esmail Qaani, top IRGC officers potentially killed by Israel
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Chief Gen. Mohammad Pakpour, who just recently replaced his predecessor who was killed in June 2025, also may be dead.

Esmail Qaani, who replaced the infamous Qasem Soleimani as head of the feared IRGC Quds Force after he was assassinated in 2000, could have been killed in the same attacks.

Iran army military chief, Abdolrahim Mousavi, who also replaced his predecessor who was killed in June 2025, also may be dead.

The defense minister for Iran, Amir Nasirzadeh, may also be among the top officials assassinated.

In general, Iran reports that 201 people have been dead and 747 injured.

There has not yet been a breakdown of combatants to civilians, but in June 2025, Israel was credited with a low civilian casualty ratio.