Gunmen kill dozens in multiple attacks on one of the deadliest days in a Pakistani province

QUETTA, Pakistan | Gunmen in southwest Pakistan killed at least 38 people in three separate attacks on Monday, officials said. The military said security forces killed 21 insurgents, marking one of the deadliest days of violence in the restive Balochistan province. There were also reports of further shootings and destruction in the region.

Twenty-three people were shot dead overnight in Musakhail, a district in Balochistan, after being dragged from buses, vehicles and trucks, senior police officer Ayub Achakzai said. The attackers set fire to at least 10 vehicles before fleeing.

In another attack, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four policemen and five bystanders, in Balochistan's Qalat district, authorities said. The bodies of six people were found in Bolan, where insurgents also blew up a railway track. They also attacked a police station in Mastung and attacked and burned vehicles in Gwadar. All of these attacks are in Balochistan. No casualties were reported in these attacks.

The military said 14 security forces were “martyred” while responding to the attacks, a figure that appears to be included in the total death toll.

“Clean-up operations will be carried out and the instigators, perpetrators, sponsors and supporters of these heinous and cowardly acts against innocent civilians will be brought to justice,” the military said in a statement.

Balochistan has long been the scene of an insurgency in Pakistan, in which a number of separatist groups have carried out attacks, particularly against security forces. The separatists demand independence from the central government in Islamabad. Although the Pakistani authorities claim to have crushed the insurgency, violence in Balochistan continues.

The attack in Musakhail came just hours after the banned separatist group Baluch Liberation Army (BLA) warned people to stay away from highways as it launched attacks on security forces in various parts of the province.

However, no one immediately claimed responsibility for the recent murders.

In a statement on Monday, the BLA said only that it had caused heavy casualties among security forces in attacks in the province. Pakistan's military and government did not immediately comment on the claim. The group often gives exaggerated figures for troop losses.

Separatists are known to ask people for their ID cards and then kidnap or kill those who are not from the province. Many of the recent victims were from the neighboring Punjab province.

Uzma Bukhari, a spokeswoman for the Punjab provincial government, condemned the latest killings on Monday, saying the “attacks are a matter of grave concern” and urged the Balochistan provincial government to “intensify its efforts to eliminate the BLA terrorists.”

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement that security forces in Balochistan responded to the latest attacks on Monday, killing 12 insurgents. He said authorities would reveal who was behind the latest attacks after completing investigations, but noted that “terrorists and their supporters will have no place to hide” in the country.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Naqvi described the Musakhail attack as “barbaric” in separate statements and vowed that those responsible would not escape justice.

Naqvi later also condemned the killings in Qalat

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 have been attributed to the banned group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban also have a presence in the province and are closely linked to the BLA.

In a separate attack on Monday in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a roadside bomb killed four people and injured 12 others in the North Waziristan district, local administrative official Abid Khan said.

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their withdrawal from the country after 20 years of war.

Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

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