At least 38 killed in several armed attacks in Pakistan's Balochistan | Crime news

The Balochistan Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for at least one of the attacks; it has staged similar incidents in the past.

Gunmen have killed at least 38 people in three attacks in Balochistan province in southwest Pakistan. Further outbreaks of violence have been reported.

Several buses and trucks were stopped by armed men on Sunday night. They checked the passengers' IDs, shot 23 of them, set fire to ten vehicles and fled to the remote area of ​​Rarasham in Musakhail district.

Elsewhere in the province, nine people were shot dead in Qalat district, including four police officers and five bystanders.

On the same day, six people were killed when a railway line was blown up in Bolan, a police station in Mastung was attacked and several vehicles were burned in the town of Gwadar in Balochistan.

An insurgency involving several armed groups has been simmering in the province for years. Human rights groups have denounced Pakistan's response to the movement, documenting that it includes enforced disappearances and other forms of state repression.

The attacks along the highway leading to Punjab province came shortly after the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) warned the population to avoid highways in the province.

In a statement, it said its fighters had deliberately attacked civilian-dressed military personnel and shot them after they had been identified.

However, the Pakistani Interior Ministry said the dead were innocent citizens.

“Vehicles travelling to and from Punjab were checked and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot dead,” Najibullah Kakar, a senior official in Musakhail, told AFP.

The injured were taken to a hospital in Dera Ghazi Khan, the nearest major medical facility.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi described the attack on Musakhail as “barbaric” in separate statements and assured that the attackers would not go unpunished.

Uzma Bukhari, a spokeswoman for the Punjab provincial government, condemned the attacks as “a matter of grave concern” and called on the Balochistan provincial government to “intensify its efforts to eliminate the BLA terrorists.”

Balochistan's Prime Minister Sarfraz Bugti also promised to bring the attackers to justice.

According to local media, 12 rebel fighters were killed by security forces across the province in the last 24 hours.

The BLA has claimed responsibility for similar attacks in Balochistan in the past, such as the killing of seven barbers in Gwadar in May and the killing of several people abducted from a highway in April.

Armed groups such as the BLA in the resource-rich but otherwise impoverished province pursue separatist goals and often attack workers from Punjab who come to the area to work.