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It is Pakistan’s largest province by size, but the smallest by population. It borders Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province where Pakistan carried out its strikes.
Hundreds of Baloch protesters, many of them women, have protested in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad in recent weeks, making accusations of heavy-handed treatment of those in the province, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.
Balochistan is a key location in China’s huge multi-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is part of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road initiative.
China has undertaken mining projects and built an international airport and a port in the province’s southern coastal town of Gwadar.
Canadian miner Barrick Gold owns a 50 per cent stake in the Reko Diq mine in the province’s district of Chagai, with the rest owned by the government of Pakistan and the province. Barrick considers the mine one of the world’s largest underdeveloped sites for copper and gold.
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What’s the connection with the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza?
Iran supports the Gaza Strip ruler Hamas, which is proscribed as a terror group in Australia, the US, the UK and the European Union, as well as other rebel groups that operate as its proxies. This includes the Yemen-based Houthis and Lebanon-based Hezbollah. The tensions from the Gaza war have already involved skirmishes between Israel and Hezbollah on the Lebanese border and targeted assassinations inside Lebanon.
In addition, the Houthis have been disrupting maritime trade traffic in the Red Sea, they say, in support of Hamas and against Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy. Their campaign started in November, when they claimed to be aiming at Israeli-linked vessels. They have since aimed at ships not connected to Israel and have been the target of US and UK strikes in Yemen. The US says its strikes, now in their fourth round, aim at protecting international shipping trade. The military action arising from the Red Sea has added to fears that Iran could become more involved in the war and the conflict could spread.
This week, Iran launched airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, then on Pakistan, prompting the Pakistan retaliatory strike on Thursday. It claims they were carried out in the name of national security.
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The fear is that further fighting in the Middle East could draw the United States, Israel and Iran into direct combat, although the players seem to be taking carefully calibrated steps not to do that. The New York Times reports that 100 days into the conflict, the assessment of most of the key players is that Iran is pushing its proxies to make trouble for the US military and to pressure Israel and the West where it can – Iraq, Syria Lebanon and the Red Sea – while not provoking a larger eruption.
Reuters, staff reporter
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