Latest news with #BalochistanProvince
Arab News
4 days ago
- General
- Arab News
One killed, four injured in IED blast in southwestern Pakistan
QUETTA: One person was killed while four others were injured in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province on Sunday night, a police official confirmed. Police said the blast took place at Brewery Road near the western bypass in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's restive Balochistan. The official confirmed that a vehicle with two people in it exploded due to the blast, injuring passersby on the busy road. 'Unidentified individuals attached a magnetic IED to a private vehicle which exploded in Quetta city,' Mehmood Kharoti, the station house officer at Brewery Road, told Arab News. 'One civilian named Hussain Ali, a resident of Kalat city, was killed in the attack and four people including three passersby were injured,' he added. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatist groups involved in targeting law enforcers and state-backed tribal leaders in the province. Kharoti said police were investigating the possible motives behind the attack. Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but most impoverished province, has been the site of a long-running insurgency that has intensified in recent months, with separatist militants attacking security forces, government officials and installations and people from other provinces who they see as 'outsiders.' The Pakistani government says it has launched several development schemes relating to infrastructure, health and education for some 15 million people of Balochistan, which is also home to a deep seaport being built by China, gold, copper and coal mines, and has a long coast on the Arabian Sea. The most prominent of these separatist militant groups in the province is the Baloch Liberation Army, which has carried out several attacks against law enforcers and political leaders considered close to the military leadership. Balochistan has seen a spike in militant violence in recent days. An IED blast killed two tribal leaders and injured seven others on Saturday in a remote mountainous town in Quetta district. In March, BLA fighters stormed a passenger train in Balochistan and held hostage hundreds of passengers before the military launched an operation to rescue them. Pakistan's government accuses India of arming and funding separatist militant groups against the state, an allegation that New Delhi has repeatedly denied. The BLA and other similar groups accuse Islamabad of denying the local Baloch population a share in the province's natural resources. Pakistan's government and military deny the allegations.
Arab News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Pakistan says India using ‘terrorism' as foreign policy tool after school bus attack in Balochistan
KARACHI: Pakistan urged the international community on Wednesday to condemn what it called India's use of 'terrorism' as a foreign policy tool, after a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeted a school bus in the southwestern Balochistan province, killing at least three children and injuring 39 others, including eight critically. Balochistan, Pakistan's largest province by landmass and rich in mineral resources, has long faced an insurgency led by separatist groups who accuse Islamabad of exploiting local resources while neglecting the population. The government denies the claims, citing investments in health, education and infrastructure. In recent months, the insurgency has intensified, with groups like the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) carrying out high-casualty attacks on civilians and security forces, including taking hostages at a passenger train. Pakistan says it has evidence linking India to these attacks, though New Delhi has denied involvement and distanced itself from the Khuzdar school bombing. However, Islamabad described the attack as a 'sequel' to India's missile and drone strikes earlier this month, accusing New Delhi of deploying militant proxies to destabilize the country, as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir visited the region to meet injured children in hospital. 'These terrorist groups — masquerading under ethnic pretenses — are not only being exploited by India as instruments of state policy, but also stand as a stain on the honor and values of the Baloch and Pashtun people, who have long rejected violence and extremism,' said a statement issued by the PM Office after Sharif's visit to Quetta. 'India's reliance on such morally indefensible tactics, particularly the deliberate targeting of children, demands urgent attention from the international community,' it added. 'The use of terrorism as a tool of foreign policy must be unequivocally condemned and confronted.' The prime minister and the accompanying delegation was briefed by Balochistan's Chief Minister Sardar Sarfraz Bugti and local military officials on the attack, which also killed two soldiers and injured 53 people in total. The official statement said Pakistan's security forces and law enforcement agencies 'will relentlessly pursue all those involved in this barbaric act,' vowing to bring 'the architects, abettors and enablers of this crime' to justice. It added the incident had exposed India's 'cunning role' to the world, revealing how it orchestrated militant violence while simultaneously portraying itself as a victim. India's Ministry of External Affairs earlier in the day rejected Pakistan's allegations, describing them as Islamabad's attempt to deflect responsibility for its own failings and internal issues. The latest attack follows a brief military standoff between the two countries earlier this month, which ended in a ceasefire on May 10. While hostilities along the border have subsided, both sides continue to trade diplomatic barbs, accusing each other of sponsoring terrorism and destabilizing the region. The attack in Khuzdar, which targeted children en route to an army-run school, was condemned by US Chargé d'Affaires Natalie Baker and UNICEF in separate statements. It was also reminiscent of one of the deadliest militant attacks in Pakistan's history when over 130 children were killed in a military school in the northern city of Peshawar in 2014. That attack was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban group.
Khaleej Times
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Khaleej Times
India rejects Pakistan's Khuzdar blast allegations
Following the attack in Balochistan's Khuzdar region, India firmly rejected Pakistan's "baseless allegations" of Indian involvement. Responding to the claims, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal expressed condolences for the loss of lives but criticised Pakistan for blaming India for its internal problems. In a statement, Jaiswal said, " India rejects the baseless allegations made by Pakistan regarding Indian involvement with the incident in Khuzdar earlier today. India condoles the loss of lives in all such incidents." He added, "It has become second nature for Pakistan to blame India for all its internal issues. This attempt to hoodwink the world is doomed to fail." Notably, a devastating blast targeted a school bus in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, killing at least six people, including four children, and injuring 38 others, Al Jazeera reported, citing an official statement. In a statement, Pakistan's military condemned the violence and accused "Indian terror proxies" of involvement in the attack. However, the military did not share evidence to support the claim. Wednesday's attack came days after a car bombing killed four people near a market in Qillah Abdullah, also in Balochistan.
Fox News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Suicide car bomber attacks school bus in Pakistan, killing at least 5 people
A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing five people, including at least three children, and wounding 38 others, according to officials. This is just the latest attack in Balochistan province, which has seen a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups carrying out attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, which has been designated as a terror group by the U.S. in 2019. A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the attack on Wednesday happened on the outskirts of the city of Khuduzar as the bus was taking children to their military-run school in the area. Troops quickly arrived at the scene and cordoned off the area as ambulances rushed the victims to hospitals. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in the region, are likely to be blamed. Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow following the children's deaths. He also said the attackers are "beasts" who deserve no leniency and who committed an act of "sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children." Officials initially reported that four children were killed but later changed the death toll to say two adults were among the dead. The death toll may rise, as several children were listed in critical condition. The military claimed the bombing was "yet another cowardly and ghastly attack" allegedly planned by neighboring India and carried out by "its proxies in Balochistan." Most of the attacks in the province are claimed by the BLA, which Pakistan alleges has the back of India. However, India has denied the allegations. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his condolences and also attributed the attack to India without providing evidence. "The attack on a school bus by terrorists backed by India is clear proof of their hostility toward education in Balochistan," Sharif said, saying that the government would bring the perpetrators to justice. Pakistani officials regularly accuse India of violence in their country. The accusations have intensified amid heightened tensions between the two countries during a cross-border escalation since last month over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Both countries rule part of Kashmir but claim full control. The escalation prompted fears of a broader war, and the BLA during this time appealed to India for support, although India has not commented on the appeal.
CNN
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Three children and two adults killed in suicide attack on school bus in Pakistan
A suicide attack on a school bus in southwestern Pakistan killed three students of a military-run school on Wednesday, officials said, in the latest attack that underscores the deteriorating security situation in the region. The explosion took place in the city of Khuzdar in restive Balochistan province and targeted a school bus carrying 'a large number' of children of military officials, according to Yasir Dashti, a senior government official from the province. 38 people were wounded in the attack, Dashti said. 'The bus was carrying Army Public School children,' said Kaleem Ullah, a police official from Khuzdar. Army Public Schools are a network of school across Pakistan for children of military staff. At least three children and two adults were killed, according to a statement from the Pakistan military. There has been no claim of responsibility for the attack so far. Balochistan has been rocked for years by a separatist insurgency that seeks greater political autonomy and economic development in the strategically important and mineral-rich mountainous region. Pakistan's military accused 'Indian proxies' of being behind the attack in a statement released shortly after the incident. It did not give evidence for its claims. Pakistan has previously accused its neighbor and arch-rival of being behind attacks in Balochistan. New Delhi has denied the accusations. CNN has contacted the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and Indian Army for a response. Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif 'strongly condemned the cowardly attack' in a statement and repeated the military's accusations that India was behind the attack. India has long accused Pakistan of sheltering militant groups that have carried out attacks across the border, including a recent massacre of tourists in India-administered Kashmir, allegations Islamabad has denied. Tensions between the two spiraled after that massacre and resulted in a brief four-day conflict earlier this month that was the most sustained fighting between the two in decades. A fragile ceasefire has held since then. Wednesday's attack comes just over two months after the deadly hijacking of a train by separatist militants in Balochistan. In that incident the Baloch Liberation Army took more than 350 people – some of whom were security personnel – hostage, killing 27 of them. Children have also been the target of some of Pakistan's most devastating terror attacks. At least 145 people, mostly school children, were killed in by Pakistani Taliban militants in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2014 – the worst terror attack in the country's history. The Pakistani Taliban's most notable target was then 15-year-old Malala Yousafzai, who was singled out and shot on October 9, 2012 as she rode to school in a van with other girls.
