"Two men were also killed in the missile attack this morning in one of the border villages of Saravan, bringing the death toll to nine," the official IRNA news agency said quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Marhamati had earlier said that three women and four children were killed in the strikes.
Pakistan said it had on Thursday launched "a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts" in Iran's Sistan-Baluchistan province.
Iran's Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said all the dead "were foreign nationals", in a televised interview.
Iran's Fars news agency said, without citing any sources, that those killed were "believed to be Pakistani nationals".
Neither the minister nor Fars explained their presence there at the time.
Sistan-Baluchistan province is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.
It has seen persistent unrest involving cross-border drug-smuggling gangs and rebels from the Baluchi ethnic minority as well as jihadists.
Iran condemned the strikes, and summoned Pakistan's charge d'affaire "to protest and request an explanation from the Pakistani government," according to statement by foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani.
The attack took place two days after Iran carried out strikes against "terrorist" targets in Pakistan which left at least two children dead.
On Wednesday Pakistan had denounced the strikes near the countries' shared border, recalled its ambassador from Iran and blocked Tehran's envoy from returning to Islamabad.
On January 10, the Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice) jihadist group claimed an attack on a police station in the southeastern city of Rask which killed one officer. The group had carried out a similar attack in December killing11 police officers.
Formed in 2012, Jaish al-Adl is blacklisted by Iran as a terrorist group and has carried out several attacks on Iranian soil in recent years.
The group said on Wednesday it had killed a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Sistan-Baluchistan, IRNA news agency reported.
China says willing to mediate between Pakistan and Iran after strikes
Beijing (AFP) Jan 18, 2024 -
Beijing said Thursday it was willing to mediate between Pakistan and Iran following an exchange of fire against militant targets in their border region, including a strike that Tehran said killed at least seven civilians.
"The Chinese side sincerely hopes that the two sides can exercise calm and restraint and avoid an escalation of tension," foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a regular press conference.
"We are also willing to play a constructive role in de-escalating the situation if both sides so wish," she said.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan and neighbouring Iran are both battling simmering insurgencies along their sparsely populated border regions.
On Thursday, Pakistan said it carried out strikes against militant targets in Iran.
Tehran said it had summoned the Pakistani charge d'affaires in response to the attack, which killed at least seven people.
Both countries are close partners of Beijing and members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Mao reiterated Iran and Pakistan were "friendly countries to China, and countries with important influence".
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