Iran carries out military drills after Pakistan's retaliatory strike

A day after Pakistan carried out strikes under Operation "Marg Bar Sarmachar" in retaliation to Iranian strikes, Tehran Friday announced that it carried out military drills focusing on air defence operations.

The air defence exercise was held in an area stretching from the country's southwestern to southeastern coasts and provisioned Iranian forces carrying out drills against electronic warfare and cyber attacks using air defence systems, reported the state-run Press TV.

Tehran's military exercise comes after Islamabad struck hideouts used by terrorist organisations, namely Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF) inside Iranian territory using killer drones, rockets, loitering munitions, and stand-off weapons.

Pakistan's strikes were a tit-for-tat response to earlier missile strikes by Iran wherein, as per the country's state media, it had the bases of a terrorist organisation in Pakistan's "Green Mountain' area with drones and missiles and destroyed the headquarters of the said terrorist group.

As per an Iranian army spokesperson, its forces "practised different methods and tactics of electronic warfare and cyber warfare in order to deal with an electronic invasion' during the military drills.

"In this stage of the exercise, the stability, survivability and continuity of the operation of radars as one of the main components of air defence in an environment contaminated with electronic warfare were evaluated," the spokesperson added.

The exercises, launched a day earlier, Iranian forces successfully launched a new air defence system using drones.

The drills — participated by the army's air force and navy, the aerospace force, and the navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) — aimed at the 'formation of safe layers of air defence to protect Iran's air borders," the spokesperson noted.

As Pakistan looks to simmer down the situation, caretaker Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, while talking to Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkiye Hakan Fidan, said that Islamabad has no interest or desire in escalation.

In light of the recent developments, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has summoned separate meetings of the federal cabinet and the National Security Committee (NSC) on Friday (today) to discuss the situation arising out of Pak-Iran tension.

The prime minister who was in Davos to attend a meeting of the World Economic Forum, cut short his visit to return to the country.

The cabinet would review the scenario against the backdrop of strikes and air space violations by Iran.

The meeting would also be briefed on the border situation and operational preparedness