Tehran: Iran has slammed Pakistan for harbouring terrorists and terror outfits after Jaish ul-Adl, a Pakistan-based terrorist group, claimed responsibility for an attack on an IRGC convoy which claimed the lives of 27 IRGC members while wounding 13 more.
The terrorist attack, which took place in mid-February, has invited the ire of Iran’s top military brass, with most promising “revenge” in the wake of the attack.
The Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari lashed out against Pakistan, stating that the Pakistan intelligence organisation was accountable for sheltering Takfiri groups, including Jaish ul-Adl.
“We believe this silence is kind of support for this grouplet and the Pakistani intelligence organization should account for it,” Major General Jafari said, according to Far News Agency.
“Pakistan should also know that it should pay the cost for the Pakistani intelligence organization’s support for Jeish al-Zolm (as Jaish ul-Adl is called in Iran) from now on and this price will no doubt be very heavy for them,” he warned.
The Major General also reaffirmed that the Pakistani security organisation “knows the hideout of the grouplets but has kept mum.”
“The recent crime has caused the IRGC and other Armed Forces to boost determination to continue the path of martyrs and confront threats and they will protect the security of the country’s borders with more strength and power and will take revenge of the blood of our oppressed martyrs,” Jafari also noted.
The military general also threatened that Iran reserved the “right of confrontation” if Pakistan ceased to comply with responsibilities.
“If Pakistan does not comply with its responsibilities, the Islamic Republic of Iran reserves the right of confrontation against these peripheral threats at the borders with the neighbouring country, based on international law and rules, and will adopt compensatory measures to punish the terrorists who are mercenaries of the regional and trans-regional states’ spy agencies,” he cautioned.
Meanwhile, the Commander of the IRGC Quds Force, Major General Qassem Soleimani further warned Islamabad to halt cross-border attacks by terrorists who are based on their soil, according to Far News Agency.
“We have always offered Pakistan help in the region, but I have this question from the Pakistani government: where are you heading to? You have caused unrest along borders with all your neighbours and do you have any other neighbour left that you want to stir insecurity for,” General Soleimani stated at an event in Babol after the February 13 suicide attack.
Furthermore, addressing the Pakistani government directly, he said: “Are you, who have atomic bombs, unable to destroy a terrorist group with several hundred members in the region? How many of your own people have been killed in different terrorist operations? We do not want your condolences, how could your condolence help the people of Iran?”
“I ask the Pakistani government what has been left for Pakistan?” he asked.
Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a military aide to the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, also lashed out against Pakistan and its intelligence organisation. “These criminal outlaws were from one of the tribes of Baluchestan who had been trained on suicide operations in the neighbouring country, and the neighbouring country and the ISI should account to the Iranian government and nation and the IRGC for (the question) how they have crossed the borders of that country and why this neighbouring country has turned into a safe haven and a place for the training and dispatch of these infidel terrorist grouplets (to Iran),” he said.
General Safavi also held Islamabad responsible for the terrorist attack on the IRGC convoy, which took place in Sistan and Baluchestan.
Meanwhile, Pakistan, promising to boost security cooperation with Iran, proposed to fence around 950 kilometres of the Iran-Pakistan border “so that no third party could sabotage the brotherly and friendly relations through any nefarious act,” Far News Agency quoted Pakistani Army Spokesperson Major General Asif Ghafoor as saying.
Responding to this, the Chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh told FNA, “The interior minister and members of the commission underlined that Pakistan lacks the capability to build a wall at the borders (but) Iran strongly welcomes construction of a wall at the borders with Pakistan.”
On February 13, a total of 27 members of Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed after an explosive-laden vehicle targeted the bus which was ferrying the military personnel in Khash-Zahedan sector of Sistan-Baluchestan province in south-eastern Iran. Tehran lodged a strong demarche with Pakistan over the assault, summoning Pakistan’s Ambassador Rafat Masoud to register an official protest.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]