Pakistan’s government announced on Wednesday that it had recalled its ambassador from Iran and that Iran’s ambassador from Islamabad, who is currently visiting his country, would not be allowed to re-enter Pakistan, Reuters reported.

A spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign ministry made the announcement on Wednesday afternoon after Pakistan accused Tehran of violating its airspace earlier in the day with airstrikes that killed two children.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry said the incident could have “serious consequences” and was “completely unacceptable”. “The responsibility for the consequences will fall squarely on Iran,” the government in Islamabad said, adding that the incident occurred despite the presence of several channels of communication with Iran.

Iran said on Tuesday that as part of coordinated airstrikes carried out in Syria, Iraq and Pakistan, it attacked two bases of the Sunni terrorist group Yaish al-Adl in Pakistan and that two important centers of the terrorist group were destroyed by missiles and drones. in.

The attacks were carried out in the Koh Sahz district of Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, which borders Iran’s Sistan Baluchistan region. Yeish al Adl is a Sunni group that opposes the Shia regime in Iran and that Tehran says is supported by Israel. The group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed 11 policemen in the town of Rusk in Sistan-Baluchistan last December, among other attacks in recent years.

Iraq also recalled its ambassador from Iran

Pakistan’s statement came after the Iraqi government announced on Tuesday that it had recalled its ambassador from Tehran for talks following a massive attack by Iranian forces on Tuesday targeting the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

Iran said the offensive began on Tuesday morning when the Revolutionary Guards, an elite unit of the country’s armed forces, fired 24 Khyber Shekan ballistic missiles at targets linked to the Islamic State terror group and alleged “spies of the Zionist regime”. from the territory of Syria and Iraq.

A total of 11 missiles were fired toward Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, against what Tehran called a “center for the development of espionage operations and terrorist planning.” The Revolutionary Guards said 4 Israeli spies were killed in the strikes.

Immediately after the strikes, the Iraqi government denied that the missile attack was aimed at the headquarters of Israel’s Mossad, as Tehran claimed, and announced that it would file a complaint with the UN Security Council over this “Iranian aggression against residential areas with ballistic missiles, which it said , this resulted in civilian casualties.

New tension in the Middle East

Tensions between the two neighboring countries, which fought a bloody war in the 1980s, have become even more unusual as the political scene in Baghdad has been dominated by pro-Shiite parties close to Tehran. Iran is the largest Shia country in the world and claims the role of the global defender of this branch of Islam.

The other 13 missiles fired by the Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday were aimed at targets in Syria by the Islamic State group, which claimed responsibility for a terror attack in Kerman that killed 94 people earlier this month.

A day after Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and General Hossein Salami, commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, vowed revenge for the massacre at the grave of Qasem Soleimani, the charismatic general who led Iran’s Quds Force until his death. US homicides in 2020. during a drone strike in Baghdad.

Iranian authorities said the attacks were in retaliation for the Kerman attacks, a separate attack that killed police in Sistan-Baluchistan in December, and the deaths of Iranian commanders and forces belonging to the so-called Axis of Resistance in Syria and in recent weeks Iraq.