1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these template messages) This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please help improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (September 2021) (Learn how and when to remove this message) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

1973 raid on the Iraqi embassy

Part of the Fourth Balochistan Conflict
Balochistan in Pakistan
Date	10 February 1973
Location	Islamabad, Pakistan
Type	Raid
Cause	Iraqi support for Baloch insurgents Iraqi assistance with smuggling covert Soviet weapons shipment intended for Baloch insurgents
Target	Iraqi embassy
Perpetrator	Pakistan Pakistan Rangers Islamabad Police
Outcome	Pakistan discovered 300 Soviet-made machine guns with an excess of 50,000 rounds of ammunition and a large amount of funding intended for Baloch militants. Deterioration of Iraq–Pakistan relations Pakistani counter-insurgency Pakistani support for Iran in the Iran–Iraq War

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 supply 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.