Security forces thwart attack on Gwadar complex; seven assailants killed

By Staff Reporter

KARACHI: Seven armed assailants were neutralized by police and security forces at the country’s southwestern Gwadar Port Authority Complex on Wednesday, officials reported.

The attackers, who had forcibly entered the complex and initiated gunfire, were met with a swift response from law enforcement.

Makran Commissioner Saeed Ahmed Umrani confirmed that the incident also involved multiple explosions. A clearance operation is currently underway to secure the area.

He confirmed one security personnel had been killed in the exchange while two others had been injured.

Initial reports from Gwadar Senior Superintendent of Police Captain (retd) Zohaib Mohsin indicated that eight assailants were killed, but this figure was later corrected to seven. He also stated that the gunfire had ceased.

Banned outfit Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for attacking the complex, saying that its fighters attacked the offices of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI).

“Eight terrorists tried to attack the Gwadar Port Authority complex today,” Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti wrote on X. “All of them have been neutralized by security forces.”

Bugti said the message was loud and clear, that anyone who chooses violence would not be shown mercy by the state.

Gwadar port is key to the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a road and energy infrastructure project that aims to improve connectivity between the two countries. It is located in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, which has been the scene of a low-lying insurgency for the past two decades.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s most sparsely populated and poor province by almost all economic indicators. Ethnic Baloch nationalists accuse the state of denying them a share in Balochistan’s mineral resources and now demand independence from the center.

The Majeed Brigade, a notorious guerilla unit of the BLA, has been active since 2011 and is known for targeting security forces and Chinese interests in Pakistan. The group has been implicated in several attacks throughout 2022, including assaults on military camps and a suicide attack outside Karachi University’s Confucius Institute.