1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan

rdf:langString 1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan

rdf:langString The 1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan was an armed infiltration carried out by Pakistan in February 1973 at the embassy of Ba'athist Iraq in Islamabad. The raid, carried out by the Pakistan Rangers and the Islamabad Police, was launched after the interception of information by Pakistani intelligence that uncovered large-scale covert Iraqi involvement in the supplication of weapons and funds to militants waging an insurgency against Iran (then the Imperial State of Iran) and Pakistan in the Balochistan region situated between the two countries. Following the embassy raid, an abundance of funds and Soviet armaments from Iraq that were meant for Baloch insurgents were seized by Pakistani forces, and the Iraqi ambassador to Pakistan as well as the embassy's staff were immediately expelled from Pakistan and declared personae non gratae. Pakistan's findings in the embassy raid heightened tensions between Iran and Iraq, which, in 1974, escalated into armed clashes over the Shatt al-Arab, a river that was formerly subject to a territorial dispute between the two nations that later served as one of the key factors that propelled them into a full-scale and protracted war in 1980 following the Iranian Revolution. The event led to a severe deterioration in Iraq–Pakistan relations and contributed to Pakistan's heavy backing of Iran during the latter's eight-year-long war with Iraq.