Gunmen kill 23 passengers stolen from vehicles in Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen shot dead 23 passengers after identifying them and pulling them from buses, cars and trucks in one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan's restive southwest, police and officials said Monday.

The killings took place overnight in Musakhail, a district in Balochistan province, senior police official Ayub Achakzai said. The attackers set fire to at least 10 vehicles before fleeing the scene.

In another attack early Monday, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four policemen and five bystanders, in Balochistan's Qalat district, authorities said. There were also reports of shootings in other parts of the province.

Insurgents blew up a railway line in Bolan district, disrupting rail traffic. Gunmen also attacked a police station in Mastung district of Balochistan, but there were no reports of casualties.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi described the attack in Musakhail as “barbaric” in separate statements and vowed that those behind it would not escape justice.

Naqvi later also condemned the killings in Qalat.

The attack in Musakhail came hours after the banned separatist group Baluch Liberation Army warned people to stay away from highways as it launched attacks on security forces in different parts of the province, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the overnight killings.

Separatists often demand people's identification and then abduct or kill those who come from Punjab or other provinces.

In May, gunmen shot dead seven barbers in Gwadar, a port city in Balochistan.

In April, separatists killed nine people after abducting them from a bus on a highway in Balochistan. In another car, which they were forced to stop, the attackers killed two people and wounded six. The BLA claimed responsibility for the attacks at the time.

Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the recent killings of non-Balochs were an attempt by separatists to harm the province economically.

Ali told the Associated Press that most of these attacks were carried out with the aim of weakening Balochistan economically, adding: “Weakening Balochistan means weakening Pakistan.”

He said insurgent attacks could hamper development work in the province.

Separatists in Balochistan have frequently killed workers and others from the country's eastern Punjab region in a campaign to force people to leave the province, which has been ravaged by a minor insurgency for years.

Most of these earlier killings were attributed to the banned group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. Militant Islamists are also present in the province.

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Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Asim Tanveer contributed to this story from Multan, Pakistan.