Iran Military Kills Senior Jaish al-Adl Terror Group's Commander Ismail Shahbakhsh Inside Pakistan

In yet another escalation between Iran and Pakistan’s fractured bilateral ties, Iran’s military waged an armed clash inside the Pakistani territory and killed senior Jaish al-Adl terror group's commander Ismail Shahbakhsh. The faction's headquarter is located in Baluchistan, the southwestern Pakistani province. In the Iranian attack, some of the terror commander’s companions were also killed, according to Iran's state-run media.  

The attack by Iranian forces on the Pakistani soil comes just a month after the two countries conducted airstrikes on each other’s territories. The Sunni terrorist group that operates in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan was formed in 2012 and has been designated as ‘terrorrist’ organization in Islamic Republic. The Pakistani Jaish al-Adl has has been involved in numerous attacks on Iranian security forces.

Jaish al-Adl killed IRGC Colonel, two guards

In January, the Pakistan based terror group shot at and killed a senior officer of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and his two guards. The slain Iranian officer was identified as Colonel Hossein Ali Javidanfar of the IRGC's Salman Corps. He was returning from administrative work from Khash and Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, when he was attacked by unknown assailants. Colonel Javidanfar was “IRGC's cultural affairs expert who was on an administrative mission to Saravan city when he was killed along with his two guards by armed assailant,” state-run Iranian news agency IRNA said. The responsibility of attack was later claimed by Jaish al-Adl.

Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, while speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, clarified that Iran has been conducting attacks in Pakistan that were targeted at terrorist group, not any Pakistani civilian. "There is a Daesh group, the so-called Jaish ul-Adl, which is an Iranian terrorist group. And they are somehow there, they have taken shelter in some parts of the Sistan-Balochistan province of Pakistan," said Amir-Abdollahian.

Pakistan claimed that two children were killed and three others were injured in Iranian attack on two bases of Jaish ul-Adl in Balochistan. "We do respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan, but we don't allow our national security to be compromised,” Amir-Abdollahian asserted in response to Pakistan’s objection.

Islamabad slammed the strikes on its territory as “unprovoked violation.”