Seven killed as Pakistan launches airstrikes on Iran
At least seven people have been killed after Pakistan launched airstrikes on Iranian territory early this morning.
The target of the attack is not known but the Pakistanis called the operation “Marg Bar Sarmachar”.
In Iranian Farsi, “marg bar” means “death to” and in the local Baluch language, “sarmachar” means guerrilla and is used by the militants operating in the cross-border region between the two countries.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry described the operation as “a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes”.
It said in a statement: “This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large scale terrorist activities.”
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The incident follows Iran’s attack on Tuesday on Pakistani soil that killed two children in the southwestern Baluchistan province.
At least seven people, including four children and three women, were killed in Thursday’s raids by Pakistan, Ali Reza Marhamati, a deputy governor of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province, told Iranian state television.
Iran and nuclear-armed Pakistan have long regarded each other with suspicion over border attacks, each side blaming the other for turning a blind eye to the militants.
HalVash, an advocacy group for the Baluch people, shared images online that appeared to show the remains of the munitions used in the attack. It said a number of homes had been struck in Saravan, a city in the Iranian province of Sistan and Baluchistan.
But while the seeming tit-for-tat exchange has stoked local tensions and spread fears of a wider regional conflict breaking out from Israel’s war in Gaza, both sides have targeted the same group of insurgents, located on either side of their mutual border.
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A map showing Pakistan’s Baluchistan and Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan regions
On Tuesday, Iran targeted Jaish al Adl, or the Army of Justice, an outlawed Sunni Muslim separatist group, which is anti-Iranian and seeks independence for Iran’s eastern Sistan and Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan provinces, making it a common target for both governments.
There has been a low-level insurgency by nationalists for more than two decades, and like other Baluchi separatist active groups in the area, Jaish al Adl has a common goal of an independent Baluchistan for ethnic Baluch areas in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
It came to prominence in 2012 and is mostly made up of members of the Sunni militant Jundullah group, which was weakened after Iran arrested most of its members.
The Pakistani strikes are the latest in a number of attacks on foreign soil in the last week or so.
Overnight, the US attacked Houthi positions in Yemen for a fourth time in less than a week, after another American-owned vessel was attacked near the Red Sea.
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Iranian missiles hit northern Iraq
Fourteen missile sites were targeted at around 11.59pm local time on Wednesday, said US Central Command.
On Monday, Iranian strikes on Iraq and Syria targeted what it called an Israeli “spy headquarters” in the city of Irbil and the Islamic State terror group respectively. It led to Iraq recalling its ambassador from Iran.
Father Christmas, driving a sleigh filled with NATO-branded rockets, is shot out of the sky above Moscow in an apparent new piece of Russian propaganda.
“Good, we don’t need anything foreign in our skies,” says a second Santa in Russian, sitting in what appears to be a control room.
Ukraine Centre for Countering Disinformation shared the video, saying that Russia’s “paranoia about the ‘NATO threat’ has reached new heights”.
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Still from apparent Russian propaganda showing Santa over Moscow
Ukrainian journalist Illia Ponomarenko reported that it was released after the Azerbaijani Airlines plane crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day – amid speculation it was shot down by Russian air defences.
Sky News has not yet been able to verify the timing of the video’s release, which appeared on pro-Russian social media channels and not from an official source.
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The video begins with Santa, dressed in red, flying in a sleigh above the Russian capital, saying: “Ho, ho, ho! Hi Russians, here are your presents! Happy New Year!”
It then shows a missile blowing up the sleigh and cuts to the control room, where an alternative Father Christmas dressed in blue asks “Is that it?” and a man in uniform replies: “Yes, the target is destroyed.”
“Good, we don’t need anything foreign in our skies,” the Santa says in response.
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South Korea’s parliament has voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo.
The move could deepen a constitutional crisis triggered by a short-lived period of martial law declared by Mr Han’s predecessor, Yoon Suk Yeol.
After the vote on Friday, Mr Han said he will step aside to avoid more chaos.
The opposition brought impeachment proceedings against him over his refusal to immediately fill three places on South Korea’s Constitutional Court – where the former president is on trial.
Three justices had been approved by parliament – where the opposition Democratic Party has a majority – but Mr Han said he would not formally appoint them without bipartisan agreement.
South Korea’s constitution says that six justices on the nine-member Constitutional Court must agree to remove an impeached president, meaning the current justices must vote unanimously to remove Mr Yoon.
The court has said it can deliberate without the full nine-member bench.
Leader of the opposition Lee Jae-myung had vowed to go ahead with the impeachment, accusing Mr Han of “acting for insurrection”.
A man waves a South Korean flag at an anti-Yoon Suk Yeol protest. Pic: AP
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Now that Mr Han – who is also prime minister – has been impeached, his finance minister Choi Sang-mok is set to take over as acting president.
Politicians in the 300 parliament voted 192-0 to impeach him. Governing party politicians boycotted the vote.
Following the vote, Mr Han said he would respect the decision and will await a ruling from the Constitutional Court on the impeachment motion.
Mr Han will be stripped of the powers and duties of the president until the Constitutional Court decides whether to dismiss or reinstate him – the same as with Mr Yoon.
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