Pakistan Convenes Security Meeting amid Iran Standoff

Pakistan's prime minister will convene an emergency security meeting on January 19 with top civilian and military officials after the country traded deadly airstrikes with neighboring Iran on militant targets this week.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carried out a missile and drone attack on what it called "terrorist" targets in Pakistan late on January 16, with Pakistan in turn striking separatist militant targets inside Iran on January 18.

The tit-for-tat military actions in the border region of Baluchistan, shared between the two countries, has further stoked regional tensions already inflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.

The United Nations, United States and Turkey have appealed for restraint, while China has offered to mediate between the two neighbors.

Pakistan’s caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar cut short his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, following the strikes.

He will chair a meeting of the National Security Committee at which a security review is to be done, with the Chief of Army Staff and head of the intelligence services in attendance.

Iran says the Pakistani airstrikes killed at least nine people, including children and women.

The Foreign Ministry summoned Pakistan's chargé d'affaires in response to the attack, the first by another country on Iranian soil since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988.

Tehran condemned what it called a "disproportionate and unacceptable" attack by Pakistan on its territory, but the Foreign Ministry struck a conciliatory tone by referring to Pakistan as a "friend and brother."

The strikes in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province came after an attack by the IRGC in Pakistan's Balochistan province that killed four civilians, including children.

The Pakistani retaliatory strike came hours after Islamabad recalled its ambassador from Iran in protest to the IRGC's attack, and said it "reserves the right to respond" to Iran's "illegal attack."