Baluchistan

Pakistan's prime minister held an emergency security meeting on Friday with military and intelligence chiefs after trading deadly air strikes with Iran on militant targets this week.

The rare military actions in the porous border region of Baluchistan — shared between the two countries — have further stoked regional tensions already enflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.

Pakistan's Prime Minister will hold an emergency security meeting on Friday with military and intelligence chiefs after trading deadly air strikes with Iran on militant targets this week.

The rare military actions in the porous border region of Baluchistan — shared between the two countries — has further stoked regional tensions already enflamed by the Israel-Hamas war.

Pakistan said on Thursday that it has launched missile strikes into Iran and that "a number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation," codenamed "Marg Bar Sarmachar".

Pakistan launched deadly strikes Thursday against militant targets in Iran in apparent retaliation for Iranian air raids on its territory, further stoking tensions and prompting Tehran to summon Pakistan's envoy.

Nine people, including three women and four children, were killed in the Pakistani strikes in restive Sistan-Baluchistan province, according to Iran's IRNA news agency.

Summer has come to Sistan and Baluchistan province, an impoverished fragment of chapped earth and shimmering heat in Iran's southeast corner, and all people there can talk about is how to get water.

Six Iranian border guards were killed in a clash with an unknown armed group trying to enter the country near the Pakistani border, state TV reported Sunday.

At least 20 people have been killed in an earthquake in Pakistan. 200 people were also injured, authorities said. The quake had a magnitude of 5.9. The epicenter was about 100 kilometers east of the city of Quetta, in Baluchistan province.

The victims are mainly women and children, rescuers say.

A powerful explosion ripped through a mosque in southwest Pakistan during Friday evening prayers, killing a senior police officer and at least 11 others, police said.

The bombing also wounded 11 other worshipers in the city of Quetta, the capital of the restive Baluchistan province, said local police chief Mohammad Ajmal.

A suicide bomber killed 132 people at an election rally in southwestern Pakistan in the second election-related attack on Friday, officials said, amid growing tensions over ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif's return ahead of the July 25 vote.

The bombing was the most deadly attack in Pakistan in over three years and is the third incident of election-related violence this week.

At least 52 people died and more than 100 others were injured on Nov. 12 in a bomb blast at a remote Sufi shrine in Pakistan, officials said, with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claiming the attack.