US slams Iranian attacks on Syria, Iraq, Pakistan
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – The U.S. condemned on Wednesday recent Iranian strikes in Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria, saying that Iran is a leading funder of terrorism and instability in the region, and attacking them on the pretext of fighting terrorism.
U.S. Department of State spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters that his country condemns the Iranian strikes. “We’ve seen Iran violate the sovereign borders of three of its neighbors in just the past couple of days.”
On Jan. 16, two children were killed and three others injured in an Iranian raid on Balochistan, Pakistan, targeting Jaish al-Adl group.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed responsibility early on the same day for strikes that hit a residential area near Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), resulting in casualties.
On Jan. 14, the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed responsibility for an attack with a barrage of rockets on the U.S.-led Global Coalition’s base in the Conoco gas plant in the northern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, eastern Syria.
Jaish al-Adl, a Sunni Islamist armed group that was formed in 2012 and mainly operates in southeastern Iran, has carried out several attacks in Iran in recent years. It has been blacklisted by Iran as a terrorist group, .
Iran claimed responsibility for the Balochistan attack and claimed that the missile attacks targeted “spy headquarters” and “terrorist” targets in Syria and Iraq.
Miller said, “I think it is a little rich for, on one hand, Iran to be the leading funder of terrorism in the region, the leading funder of instability in the region, and on the other hand, claimed that it needs to take these actions to counter terrorism.”
Pakistan’s air force launched early Thursday retaliatory airstrikes in Iran, targeting militant hideouts and killing at least nine people.