PAKISTAN’S air force launched retaliatory air strikes early today in Iran killing at least nine people.

The tit-for-tat attacks between Iran and Pakistan on Tuesday and Thursday have further heightened tensions across the region and was followed yesterday by an air strike on southern Syria which also killed at least nine people.

The attacks by the Iranian and Pakistani neighbours appeared to target two Baluch militant groups with similar separatist goals on both sides of the border. 

But the two countries have accused each other of providing safe haven to the groups in their respective territories.

The strikes imperil diplomatic relations between the two neighbours, as Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over militant attacks. 

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry described their attack on Thursday as “a series of highly co-ordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes.”

“This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large-scale terrorist activities,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 

“This action is a manifestation of Pakistan’s unflinching resolve to protect and defend its national security against all threats.”

The Baluch Liberation Army, an ethnic separatist group that has operated in the region since 2000, said in a statement the strikes targeted and killed its people.

“Pakistan will have to pay a price for it,” the group warned. “Now the Baluch Liberation Army will not remain silent. We will avenge it and we announce war on the state of Pakistan.”

Early on Thursday morning, at least nine people were killed in southern Syria by an air strike which was probably carried out by Jordan’s air force, Syrian opposition activists said.

The strikes took place in an area where cross-border drug smugglers have been active.

There was no immediate confirmation from Jordan on the strike that hit the province of Sweida.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said nine people, including two children and at least three women, were killed in the strike on the village of Orman.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdurrahman, said that the people killed had nothing to do with smuggling, suggesting that the Jordanian air force might have received incorrect intelligence from local residents.

Jordan has been used as a corridor over the past years in smuggling operations out of Syria, mainly to oil-rich Arab Gulf states.