Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on 17 January that the militant group targeted by Iran with missile strikes in Pakistan is linked to Israel.
The Iranian foreign minister said Tehran respects Pakistan’s sovereignty and continues to have good relations with Islamabad.
The Iranian Minister of Defense, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Ashtiani, repeated Amir-Abdollahian’s claim, saying, “Iran respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighboring countries, but will never accept the presence of machinations and conspiracies on its borders.”
Iran’s Tuesday strikes in Pakistan targeted a militant group known as Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni militant and Baluchi separatist organization that operates mainly across the border in southeastern Iran.
Pakistani officials said two children were killed and three others injured, while Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran had not killed civilians. He said Iran “targeted the terrorists in Pakistan (Jaish al-Adl) and not Pakistani citizens.”
Formerly known as Jundallah, the group has long-standing ties to Western intelligence agencies. ABC News reported that according to unnamed US and Pakistani intelligence sources, the group has been “secretly encouraged and advised” by the American government since 2005.
The group claims that Iran’s Shiite government is oppressing its Baluchi minority and has announced responsibility for bombings, kidnappings, and televised beheadings of Iranian troops and officials.
In 2007, an analysis by Stratfor, a global intelligence consulting firm, noted the US could be using Jundullah as a “poking device” against Iran. The firm said the US “has an interest in demonstrating that it has friends among Iran’s minority groups to gather intelligence, stir up public unrest and distract the clerical regime.”
But in 2012, Foreign Policy reported that a series of memos written by US intelligence analysts during the last years of President George W. Bush’s administration investigated and debunked reports that the CIA was supporting Jundallah. Instead, the memos described how “Israeli Mossad officers recruited operatives belonging to the militant group by passing themselves off as American agents.”
Foreign Policy added that the recruitment campaign came amid “a covert, bloody, and ongoing campaign aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear program,” which included the assassination of several Iranian nuclear scientists.