<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;"><font color="#634aa5"><b>Pakistan said today that Iran carried out an airstrike on its territory that killed two children after Tehran launched attacks in Iraq and Syria against what it called “anti-Iranian terrorist groups”.</b></font></span><br></div><div><br></div><div>Pakistan denounced the strike, near the nations’ shared border late yesterday, as “completely unacceptable”, saying it was unprovoked.</div><div><br></div><div>Iranian news agency Mehrnews said the “missile and drone response” targeted the Jaish al-Adl group’s headquarters in Pakistan, calling it “another decisive step taken by Iran in response to the aggression against the security of our country”.</div><div><br></div><div>Formed in 2012, Jaish al-Adl is blacklisted by Iran as a terrorist group and has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.</div><div><br></div><div>The strike came after Iran launched missile attacks on “spy headquarters” and “terrorist” targets in Syria, and Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.</div><div><br></div><div>The Iranian strikes add to multiple crises across the Middle East, with Israel waging a war against Hamas in Gaza and pro-Palestinian Houthi rebels in Yemen attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea.</div><div><br></div><div>Today, Iran’s defence minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said Tehran would set “no limits” to its security.</div><div><br></div><div>Mohammad Hosseini, deputy president for parliamentary affairs, said Pakistan had been warned “that they must prevent the entry into Iran of people who kill large numbers of people, it was natural to have the reaction of the Islamic Republic”.</div><div><br></div><div>China, close partners of Iran and Pakistan, urged restraint, with foreign ministry spokesman Mao Ning saying both should “avoid actions that would lead to an escalation of tension”.</div><div><br></div><div>Pakistan’s official statement did not specify where the strike took place, but Pakistani media said it was near Panjgur in southwest Balochistan province, where the two nuclear-armed countries share a sparsely populated border of nearly 1,000km.</div><div><br></div><div>Hours before the strike, Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar had met Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.</div><div><br></div><div>“This violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely unacceptable and can have serious consequences,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement.</div><div><br></div><div>It said the strike caused the “death of two innocent children while injuring three girls”. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>