Dozens of militants attacked a police post overnight in southwestern Pakistan, triggering an intense gunbattle that killed nine police officers and wounded some others, officials said Tuesday. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The attack took place in a remote area of Ziarat district in Balochistan province. The assailants also abducted eight police officers, but all were later recovered by security forces, said Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government. He said a subsequent clearance operation by security forces ended with 15 militants killed. Rind said intelligence-based operations against militants would continue and vowed that authorities would respond decisively.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA). The BLA claimed responsibility for a weekend suicide attack on a security post in Jiwani, though the government has neither confirmed nor denied the claim. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi blamed the attack on what he described as Indian-backed militants, providing no evidence. India has repeatedly denied such allegations.
Balochistan, Pakistan's largest but least populous province, has long been the scene of an insurgency by separatist groups as well as attacks by the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). The BLA was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 2019.