By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: Gunmen stormed a remote village in southwestern Pakistan on Sunday evening, touching off a firefight with security forces that left at least four militants dead and nine other people wounded, provincial officials said Monday, warning that the death toll could still rise with fighting underway and several villagers unaccounted for.
The attack unfolded in Killi Babri, a cluster of homes tucked into the mountains of the Hanna Urrak valley, roughly 30 kilometers from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. It came less than a week after residents there had blocked roads into the valley to protest what they described as a growing militant presence and mounting threats against the community — a demonstration that prompted authorities to promise stepped-up security.
Those assurances did little to prevent Sunday’s assault.
Mir Ziaullah Langove, the provincial home minister, told reporters in Quetta on Monday that the four dead were militants killed in an exchange of gunfire with government forces, and that the fighting had not yet ended.
“We have received information that four terrorists were killed during an exchange of firing with the security forces,” Langove said. Two members of the province’s Anti-Terrorism Force were among the wounded, he said, and gunmen had seized seven villagers as the battle unfolded.
“The terrorists have kidnapped seven local villagers, but a search operation is still going on to recover them and clear the area,” Langove said.
Bakht Muhammad Kakar, Balochistan’s health minister and the elected representative for the valley, offered a grimmer assessment of what residents endured. Villagers, he said, had already been on edge because of militant threats when the attackers moved in Sunday evening — despite the government’s pledge, made only days earlier, to put joint security measures in place.
“The villagers were already on alert following threats by the terrorists, but the number of casualties might rise as some villagers are still missing,” Kakar said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility. But a Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the assault bore the hallmarks of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, the militant network commonly known as the Pakistani Taliban.
According to the official, the same fighters had tried to move into the valley from the surrounding mountains the previous week, only to be driven back by armed residents. They returned Sunday evening in greater force.
“These terrorists came down from the nearby mountains last week but were pushed back by the villagers,” the official said. “They came again on Sunday evening and targeted the villagers.”
In response, the Balochistan government said it would install a joint security checkpoint in Killi Babri, a measure officials described as necessary to close gaps that had left the village exposed.
“In order to strengthen security, ensure a prompt response to any imminent threat and enhance coordinated security arrangements in the area, the government has decided to establish a joint check point,” the provincial home department said in a statement.
That pledge did not satisfy residents of Hanna Urrak, who moved their protest to Quetta itself Monday, shutting down a major highway leading into the valley and demanding that authorities act decisively against the militants who have menaced their community.
The violence is the latest flashpoint in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area and, by most economic and social measures, its poorest. For decades the province has been gripped by a low-grade insurgency, with the Pakistani Taliban and a patchwork of ethnic Baloch separatist groups regularly targeting security personnel and civilians alike.
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