Saeed Shah and Benoit Faucon
WSJ, Jan. 16, 2024
“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took the rare step on Monday of launching strikes out of Iran into Syria, despite having its own military presence there.”
Iran hit a jihadist group in Pakistan with a missile and drone strike Tuesday, according to Iranian state media, as a series of conflicts continue to spread across the Middle East in the wake of Israel’s war in Gaza.
The target of the unusual attack inside Pakistan was a militant group, Jaish al-Adl, in Pakistan’s remote western province of Balochistan, which has a long border with Iran. Islamabad condemned the attack, which it said had killed two children and injured three. The strike came after Iran said Monday that it had launched ballistic missiles at targets in Iraq in retaliation for the killing of some of their officers and allies and at a militant target in Syria.
Tehran is in an indirect confrontation with Israel and the U.S., in response to the Gaza war, working with a network of regional allied groups. It is also defending against attacks against its regional allies and attacks at home—including a bombing this month in the Iranian city of Kerman claimed by a branch of the Islamic State group which killed around 100 people. “Iran knows it is on the edge of the abyss,” said an Iranian official. “So it is only taking calculated risks and keeping the regional conflict contained.”… [To read the full article, click here]