Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan has urged Iran to conduct a “comprehensive investigation” after eight Pakistani migrant workers were killed over the weekend in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province, which shares a border with Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province.

The attack took place on Saturday in Mehrestan county, located roughly 230km (142 miles) from the Pakistan border, where unidentified assailants attacked a workshop.

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According to Iranian media reports, all eight workers – who belonged to various areas of Pakistan’s Punjab province and were working as mechanics – were tied up and shot dead.

The Baloch Nationalist Army (BNA), a lesser-known Baloch group seeking independence from Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Iran and Pakistan were both quick to condemn the attack, with the Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, Reza Amiri Moghadam, saying “terrorism is a common threat throughout the region”.

The Pakistani envoy to Tehran, Mudassir Tipu, confirmed in a statement on X that the two countries were coordinating efforts to investigate the incident.

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Earlier, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had sought a joint response against the attackers. “Pakistan strongly condemns the inhumane and cowardly killing of its nationals in Iran. We hope for the Iranian side’s full cooperation in investigating the matter and in the timely repatriation of victims’ remains,” it said in a statement on Sunday.

Yet experts say the deadly attack only underscored the tense security landscape along their shared border — where the two countries traded missile fire last year, accusing each other of harbouring deadly armed groups.

Rising tensions along the border

The Pakistan-Iran border has been tense since January 2024, when Iran launched attacks on Pakistani soil.

The Iranian government said it was targeting Jaish al-Adl, an armed group it accuses of carrying out multiple attacks in Iran. Pakistan responded a day later with a retaliatory attack that it said was based on “credible intelligence” regarding “impending large-scale terrorist activities” from across the border.

Just days after the exchange, at least nine Pakistani labourers were killed in Iran’s Saravan region by unidentified men in a strikingly similar act of violence to the Mehrestan incident.

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Balochistan, a region that spans parts of Iran and Afghanistan, has experienced a surge in violence over the past year, with the secessionist group Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) (BLA) carrying out several large-scale attacks.

Last month, the BLA launched an audacious attack by hijacking the Jaffer Express, a Pakistani passenger train carrying about 400 people. Following an operation that lasted more than 24 hours, Pakistani security forces overcame the hijacking, eliminating at least 33 attackers. Thirty people, including 26 passengers and four security personnel, were also killed.

Balochistan is home to about 15 million of Pakistan’s estimated 240 million people, according to the 2023 census. Yet, it remains the country’s poorest region despite its wealth in natural resources, including coal, gold, copper, and gas.

It also hosts one of Pakistan’s major deep-sea ports at Gwadar, a critical hub in the $62bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), designed to connect southwestern China to the Arabian Sea through Pakistan.

Baloch nationalist groups allege that the Pakistani state has neglected their people while exploiting the province’s resources, fuelling separatist movements and armed rebellions. Baloch activists also accuse the government of human rights violations and of being behind forced disappearances — a charge that Pakistan’s government denies.

BNA’s attempt to reassert presence?

While Pakistani authorities have repeatedly accused the Taliban group, Afghanistan’s interim rulers, of harbouring violent groups that conduct cross-border attacks, criticism against the Iranian government has remained comparatively restrained, said Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, a security analyst.

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Mehsud, who is also a co-founder of The Khorasan Diary, a security research portal, added that while Tehran insists that it does not harbour Baloch armed separatists, multiple incidents over the past 15 months suggest that Baloch secessionist groups are active on Iran’s side of the border.

While the BLA remains the most potent group in Balochistan, targeting law enforcement personnel as well as Chinese interests, Mehsud said the BNA — the group that claimed Saturday’s attack — is smaller, with more limited resources.

There is no evidence to suggest that Iran is in any way supportive of the BNA. In fact, the Baloch group views Iran, as it views Pakistan, as an occupier.

“BNA has faced internal divisions in the past as well and lags significantly behind BLA in terms of fighter strength, including suicide squads, financial resources, propaganda capabilities, and weapon availability,” Mehsud added.

He believes the latest attack may be an attempt by the BNA to reassert its presence.

Baloch rebels a threat to Iran too

The Islamabad-based analyst adds that although the BNA is opposed to Iran, its threat to Tehran’s interests appears limited compared with Jaish al-Adl, a Baloch group that has repeatedly attacked Iran in the past.

That, he said, might explain Iran’s approach to the two groups — prioritising one as a security threat over the other.

“Iran’s response to these groups differs significantly, persistently targeting Jaish al-Adl while seemingly not taking action against the BNA,” Mehsud said.

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Still, following the April 12 attack, Iran has been firm in seeking a regional response to armed groups — which creates the possibility of greater coordination between Tehran and Islamabad in addressing security threats on both sides of the border.

“Combating this ominous phenomenon requires collective and joint efforts by all countries to eradicate all forms of terrorism and extremism that have claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people in recent decades,” Moghadam, the Iranian ambassador in Pakistan, wrote on X.