Latest news with #BalochistanProvince
Arab News
01-07-2025
- Health
- Arab News
Teenager killed, 11 injured as militants storm southwestern Pakistani town
QUETTA: Dozens of militants armed with guns and rockets stormed the Mastung town in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province, a government spokesman and health officials said on Tuesday, with a teenager killed and 11 others injured in the attack. The militants stormed a bank, tehsil and other offices, Balochistan government spokesman Shahid Rind said, adding that gunfire by militants killed a 16-year-old boy and injured seven others. Dr. Saeed Meerwani, medical superintendent of Mastung District Headquarters Hospital, told one body and three injured were brought to the hospital, while Arbab Awais Kasi, a spokesman for Nawab Ghous Bukhsh Raisani Hospital, said the facility treated and discharged eight injured persons. 'FC [Frontier Corps paramilitary], CTD [Counter-Terrorism Department] and Levies [paramilitary] surrounded the area and the militants retreated,' Rind said in a statement. 'Two terrorists were killed and three were injured in the exchange of fire between security forces and terrorists.' Rind said the attack was carried out by 'Fitna Al-Hindustan,' a reference to alleged Indian-backed Baloch separatist groups in the region. New Delhi denies supporting militancy in Pakistan. Balochistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatists seeking independence from the central government. The province is also home to militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban and the Daesh (Islamic State) group. 'The swift response by security forces helped prevent further loss of lives,' Rind said. 'A full-scale operation is underway against the terrorists present in the area.' He said security agencies have also started searching for the facilitators of the attackers. In recent months, the separatists have mounted their attacks against the government and security forces in Balochistan, where the military has a huge presence in and has long run intelligence-based operations against groups such as the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). In March, the BLA separatist hijacked a train with hundreds of passengers aboard near Balochistan's Bolan Pass, which resulted in the deaths of 23 soldiers, three railway employees and five passengers. At least 33 insurgents were also killed. More than 50 people, including security forces, were killed in August last year in a string of coordinated assaults in the province that were claimed by the BLA.
Arab News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Militants storm police station, torch banks, kill a boy in southwest Pakistan
QUETTA: Dozens of militants armed with guns and rockets stormed a police station and set fire to two banks in restive southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing a boy and wounding nine others before fleeing, officials said. The boy died when the attackers fired on civilians indiscriminately during the attacks in Mastung, a district in Balochistan province, said Jan Mohammad, a local government administrator. Mohammad said some of the insurgents were also killed in the shootout with security forces. A provincial government spokesman, Shahid Rind, said a security operation had been launched to pursue the assailants. No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, which often targets security forces and civilians in Balochistan and elsewhere. The United States designated the BLA a terrorist organization in 2019. Balochistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency by separatist groups seeking independence from the central government. The province is also home to militants linked to the Pakistani Taliban and Daesh group.
Arab News
02-06-2025
- 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.
