In southwestern Pakistan, gunmen launched two separate attacks on Monday, resulting in at least 31 deaths, while security forces killed 12 insurgents, officials reported.
The attacks marked one of the deadliest days of violence in the troubled Baluchistan province. In Musakhail, attackers fatally shot 23 people who were identified and taken from buses and trucks, according to senior police official Ayub Achakzai. The attackers also set fire to at least 10 vehicles before fleeing.
In another assault in the Qalat district, also in Baluchistan, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passersby.
Additional violence included insurgents blowing up a railway track in Bolan, attacking a police station in Mastung, and burning vehicles in Gwadar, though these incidents did not result in casualties.
These attacks occurred shortly after Pakistani authorities reported two separate bus accidents, which together left at least 35 dead and many others injured. The first crash involved a bus carrying Shiite Muslim pilgrims from Iraq, which fell into a ravine in Baluchistan, killing 12 people. The second crash, in Punjab province, did not involve any suspected criminal activity.
Baluchistan has been a hotspot for a long-running insurgency, with various separatist groups staging attacks primarily targeting security forces. Despite claims by authorities of having suppressed the insurgency, violence continues.
The recent violence in Musakhail followed a warning from the outlawed Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), advising people to avoid highways as they targeted security forces in the region. The BLA claimed to have inflicted significant losses on the security forces, although such claims are often exaggerated.
Separatists frequently abduct or kill individuals from outside the province, with recent victims primarily from neighboring Punjab. Punjab’s spokesperson, Uzma Bukhari, condemned the latest attacks, urging the Baluchistan provincial government to intensify efforts against BLA terrorists.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi stated that security forces had killed 12 insurgents in response to the attacks and assured that those responsible would be brought to justice. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and Naqvi all condemned the Musakhail attack as “barbaric.”
In related violence, four people were killed and 12 injured by a roadside bomb in North Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The Pakistani Taliban, allied with the Afghan Taliban, is believed to be responsible for the attack.