By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: At least 21 people were killed, mostly soldiers, in three separate attacks on Friday in the western provinces of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which border Afghanistan, officials said.
Fourteen soldiers of the Pakistan Army were killed when two vehicles carrying security forces were ambushed by terrorists in the restive province of Balochistan, the military said.
The vehicles were traveling from Pasni to Ormara, a coastal town in the Gwadar district when they came under attack, the Inter-Services Public Relations, the military’s media wing, said in a statement.
“On 3 November 2023, 2 vehicles of security forces moving from Pasni to Ormara in Gwadar District, were ambushed by the terrorists,” the ISPR said. “14 soldiers embraced shahadat [martyrdom] in the unfortunate incident.”
The statement called the attack an “unfortunate incident” and said that a sanitization operation was underway in the area to hunt down the perpetrators of the “heinous act.”
It added that the security forces of Pakistan were determined to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country and that such sacrifices of the brave soldiers further strengthened their resolve.
The attacks, however, underscored the fragility of security in Pakistan, which has seen a surge in militant violence this year, especially in the regions near its troubled neighbor.
Balochistan is home to a long-running separatist insurgency, as well as Islamist militants linked to the Taliban and the Islamic State. The province is also the site of major infrastructure and connectivity projects that Pakistan and China jointly developed as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
The separatists have opposed the projects, saying they are designed to exploit the province’s natural resources and marginalize its people. They have also targeted the strategic port of Gwadar, where the attack on Friday took place, as a symbol of Chinese influence in the region.
Officials said the militants used an improvised explosive device and gunfire to attack the security convoy. The area had been cordoned off and a search operation was underway.
The attack was condemned by the interim prime minister, the foreign minister, the interim chief minister of Balochistan, and several political leaders, who paid tribute to the martyred soldiers and expressed solidarity with their families.
The interim prime minister, Anwaarul Haq Kakar, said that the “evil intentions” of the militants would not be allowed to succeed and that the martyrs had sacrificed their lives for the safety of the country.
“The entire nation, including me, is proud of its martyrs,” he said in a statement. He added that such cowardly attacks would never be able to deter the resolve of the Pakistani nation and its forces.
Earlier in the day, two other attacks targeted police and security forces in the district of Dera Ismail Khan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, killing seven people and injuring 23 others, officials said.
One of the attacks involved a bomb planted on a motorcycle that exploded near a police van in a crowded area of the city, killing six civilians and wounding 22 people, including two policemen, the police said. Initial investigation suggested that eight to 10 kilograms of explosives were used in the device.
The second attack took place in a village on the outskirts of the city, where militants fired at a security convoy, killing one soldier, and injuring another.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Pakistani officials have blamed various militant factions, including the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, also known as the Pakistani Taliban, for previous violence in the region.
The Pakistani Taliban, who are separate from the Afghan Taliban, have waged a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani state for over a decade, seeking to impose a harsh version of Islamic law. They have also carried out cross-border attacks from their bases in Afghanistan, where they have found refuge from Pakistani military operations.
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