At least 18 paramilitary soldiers and 24 armed attackers have been killed in two related incidents in southwestern Pakistan, according to officials and local media reports, as sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence escalates in the region.
Pakistan’s military on Saturday said fighters tried to set up roadblocks overnight in the restive province of Balochistan, and most of the deaths took place as security forces removed them.
A vehicle “carrying unarmed Frontier Corps paramilitaries” near the town of Mangochar “came under gunfire from 70 to 80 armed assailants who had blocked the road”, a police official told the AFP news agency.
taries were seriously injured while two escaped unharmed.
In a statement, the Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack on the paramilitary, but gave a lower death toll of 17.
At least 11 of the attackers were killed in what the military described as follow-up “clearance operations” on Saturday.
The onslaught was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a militant organization behind rising violence in the Balochistan province that borders Afghanistan and Iran.
A vehicle carrying unarmed border troops “came under gunfire from 70 to 80 armed assailants who had blocked the road,” a police official told the AFP news agency. The official was speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The Pakistani military said the casualties occurred after troops engaged the insurgents who erected barricades on a key highway in Kalat, near the border with Afghanistan.
The security forces “successfully removed the roadblock” following the overnight clashes, the military said in a statement.
The military confirmed 18 soldiers died in the operation and vowed that “the perpetrators, facilitators and abettors of this heinous and cowardly act, will be brought to justice.” Security forces recovered the bodies of 12 insurgents, the military said.
Troops also killed another 11 insurgents in an operation that was still underway, the military added.
