By Staff Reporter
QUETTA: Security forces have killed three militants and surrounded seven more in the southwestern port city of Gwadar after a foiled attack on an empty construction camp.
Officials said the camp, which was targeted by militants the state links to Fitna al-Hindustan, was unoccupied and no casualties were reported. The attackers set fire to several trucks parked on a nearby road, they said. Islamabad uses the term for Balochistan-based groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), to underline what it says is Indian involvement in destabilising Pakistan.
Security sources said three more suspected militants had been surrounded at the camp. A second operation was underway against four others who were cornered inside a hotel near the Gwadar Highway, after what the sources described as another attempted attack. The general officer commanding in Gwadar was leading the operation on the ground, state-owned Radio Pakistan reported.
Gwadar, on the Arabian Sea, is the centrepiece of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and Chinese-funded projects there have been repeatedly targeted by Baloch separatists.
A joint statement from the Gwadar administration and police said accounts circulating on social media about the security situation were inaccurate, and that the law and order situation in the BP-250 area and its surroundings was under control. Security officials also described reports of attacks on security forces, intelligence agencies and their camps as baseless, and urged the public not to treat claims circulated by militant groups as fact. The competing accounts could not be independently verified.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi praised the security forces in a post on X, saying: “We are proud of the brave sons of the soil who are fighting against terrorists.” He said the whole nation stood behind the forces and that operations would continue until militants and their facilitators were eliminated.
The Gwadar incident came on the same day as a deadly clash in the north-west. Four police officers and two suspected militants were killed in a gunbattle in Karak district, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, police said.
Officers had launched a search operation after suspected militants set up a roadblock the previous night. The shooting began when police raided the home of suspected militant commander Qaiser Iqbal at around midday.
The dead officers were named as Imran Ud Din Khan, a deputy superintendent of the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD), Sub-Inspector Afzal Awan, Kazim, who was the deputy superintendent’s gunman, and Amjad, a Bomb Disposal Unit official. Police did not identify the two militants killed, and said the operation was continuing.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governor Faisal Karim Kundi condemned the attack and said the province’s police sacrifices in the fight against terrorism were unforgettable. “The blood of our martyrs will not go in vain,” he said.
The violence follows the deadliest period for militant attacks in Pakistan in more than a decade. The Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS) recorded 225 militant attacks in September, the highest monthly total in 12 years. Balochistan was the worst-hit province with 131 attacks, against 58 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Separate data from the monitoring group ACLED shows attacks across the country rose nearly fourfold, to 2,425 in 2025 from 658 in 2022, while attacks by the Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), rose more than sevenfold, to 838 from 118.
Gwadar district has seen fighting this week. The military said Major Wajahat Waheed, 34, was killed by a roadside bomb during a clearance operation in Pasni tehsil on 18 October, while four militants were killed in a separate operation in Kalat. Mr Naqvi had also praised operations in Quetta, Nushki and Khuzdar in which eight militants were killed.
Last week, 20 trainee police officers were abducted by unidentified armed men while travelling between Kalat and Mastung in Balochistan. They came from Kharan, Nushki, Chagai and Washuk. In July, at least 30 people, including 27 police officers, were killed when militants ambushed police in the Kach Mangi area of Ziarat, triggering hours of gunfire. A joint operation by the army, the Frontier Corps and Balochistan Police launched after that attack remains under way.
Much of the violence in the northwest is blamed on the TTP, a group separate from but allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. Islamabad accuses Kabul of letting TTP fighters operate from Afghan territory, which the Taliban government denies. The dispute has led to border clashes in recent months.
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
