(Reuters) – Iran said on Friday it had successfully carried out military air defense maneuvers using drones along its coastline in the south of the country, amid intense regional tensions.
Pakistan on Thursday bombed in Iran what it presented as armed separatist bases in retaliation for a similar action by Tehran two days earlier on Pakistani territory.
“Iranian forces have successfully launched a new method of air defense that uses drones to intercept hostile targets,” an Iranian army spokesperson was quoted as saying by state media Press TV.
These maneuvers took place Thursday and Friday in an area extending from the province of Khuzestan, in the southwest, to that of Sistan and Baluchistan, on the border with Pakistan in the southeast of Iran.
After the mutual bombings of recent days, Iran and Pakistan have expressed their intention to calm the situation.
In addition to these tensions with Pakistan, Iran and the armed movements it supports across the region have attacked Israeli and American targets in the Middle East since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip triggered by the attack on Palestinian Hamas in southern Israel on October 7.
Iran also carried out strikes in Syria and Iraq at the start of the week, against what it presented in the first case as sites of the Islamic State organization and in the second as an Israeli spy center.
(French version Bertrand Boucey, edited by Blandine Hénault)
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