By Aarti Tikoo Singh

New Delhi/Islamabad, Jan 3 (IANS): Iran's most powerful military commander Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a US drone strike on Thursday in Baghdad had been secretly using Baloch militant groups against Pakistan.

According to a leaked letter of Pakistan's ministry of foreign affairs, 14 personnel of Pakistan Armed Forces were killed recently by Baloch militants based in Iran. This was one of the several attacks orchestrated by Baloch militants shielded by Iranian intelligence chief and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Soleimani.

Intelligence sources told IANS that Pakistani forces were killed on April 18, 2019, weeks after 27 IRGC soldiers were killed by Pakistani terrorists on February 13. Soleimani had strongly lashed out at Pakistan after the killings of 27 Iranian revolutionary guards.

In their complaint to Iranian Embassy, Pakistan foreign ministry wrote, "15 to 20 terrorists who camouflaged themselves in Frontier Corps (FC) uniform barricaded the road and stopped 3 to 4 buses travelling from Ormara to Gwadar on the coastal highway at Buzi Top in the dawn of 18 April 2019 and on the identification of the passengers, shot down 14 personnel belonging to the Armed Forces of Pakistan. 'BRAS' which is the alliance of three Baloch terrorist organisations have claimed responsibility for this terrorist act. After the incident, the terrorists who arrived from border region returned to that area."

Pakistan, the letter, pointed out, "has repeatedly shared intelligence about these activities. The information about the hubs of these Baloch terrorist organisations in Iran, having training camps and logistics bases across the border, was shared with Iranian intelligence in the recent past, and on a number of occasions earlier. Unfortunately, no action has been taken by Iran in this regard, to date."

Protesting against the killing of its forces, Pakistan, pleaded with Iran to act against the Baloch groups based in Iran, whose locations it had identified several times.