Relations between Iran and Pakistan have plunged to an unprecedented low suddenly after “unprovoked” Iranian missile and drone strikes almost 280km inside Pakistani territory.

The strikes, which are said to have killed six people, including two babies who were shown to TV cameras, were aimed, according to Iran, at a Sunni terrorist group Jaish al-Adl. Iran says the group carried out an attack which killed 11 policemen in an Iranian border province in December.

Iran has staged attacks on Pakistani targets along their shared border before. But this is the first time ever Iran has struck so deep inside Pakistani territory.

The missile and drone strikes were all the more surprising because the Pakistan prime minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, had met the Iranian foreign minister at Davos earlier in the day. Also the Pakistan and Iranian navies were conducting joint exercises when the strikes took place. Another trade meeting taking place in the Iranian port city Chabahar was ended abruptly after the strikes. The two countries have been striving to improve relations in recent months.

Pakistan’s caretaker foreign minister Jalil Abbas Jilani voiced Islamabad’s “strongest condemnation” of the attack and warned of possible “serious consequences. He insisted that his country had a right to respond to what he described as a “provocative act” and violation of sovereignty by Iran.

India’s foreign ministry, meantime, said it has an “uncompromising” anti-terror stance and that every country had a right to take action against terrorism. But ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal added the dispute was between Pakistan and Iran.

Media in the US and UK warned of a wider potential conflagration taking place in the Middle East and surrounding regions. Iran also carried out missile strikes against what it said were anti-Iranian terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday. The Americans accuse Iran of being the key backer of Hamas and also the Houthis in Yemen who have launched strikes against shipping in the Red Sea.

Jaish al-Adl, a Baluch armed group, has been accused of carrying out a terror strike which killed 11 policemen in an Iranian border province in December.

The Iranian ambassador to Pakistan, who was on a visit to his country, was ordered not to return. Pakistan said it would also recall its ambassador immediately. Other high-level meetings have also been cancelled for the foreseeable future.

Iran insisted it had struck an Iranian terrorist group and that no “brotherly” Pakistanis had been killed. A senior Iranian minister also warned Pakistan it “must prevent the entry into Iran of people who kill large numbers of people.”

“Wherever they want to threaten the Islamic Republic of Iran, we will react and this reaction will definitely be proportionate, tough and decisive,” Iran’s defence minister Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said late Wednesday.

Senior Pakistan minister expressed their shock at today’s strikes. Pakistan-based terrorists also carried out an attack inside Iran last June and they have done so in earlier years too.

Pakistan and Iran have previously accused each other of harboring militants along their mutual border.

One Indian commentator remarked that the attack showed Pakistan had weak air defences.