QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen identified and took 23 passengers from buses, vehicles and trucks and shot them dead in one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan’s restive southwest, police and authorities said Monday.
Senior police official Ayub Achakzai said the murder took place at night in Balochistan’s Musakhair district, and that the assailants set at least 10 vehicles on fire before fleeing the scene.
In a separate attack early Monday, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passers-by, in Kalat district of Balochistan province, authorities said, with reports of shootings in other parts of the province.
Militants blew up railway tracks in the province’s Bolan district, disrupting rail services. Militants also attacked a police station in Balochistan’s Mastung district, but no casualties were reported.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued separate statements calling the attack in Musahail “barbaric” and vowing that those behind it would not escape justice.
Later, Naqvi also condemned the murders in Qalaat.
The attack in Musahail came hours after the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army separatist group launched attacks on security forces across the province and warned people to stay away from highways, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the overnight killings.
Separatists often ask people to show their identity cards and then kidnap or kill people from Punjab and other provinces.
In May, a gunman shot dead seven barbers in the port city of Gwadar in Balochistan province.
In April, separatists abducted and killed nine people from a bus on a highway in Balochistan, and the attackers also killed two and wounded six in another car they forced to stop. The BLA claimed responsibility for these attacks at the time.
Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the recent killings of non-Baloch people were an attempt by separatists to cause economic damage to the province.
Ali told the Associated Press that most of these attacks were aimed at weakening Balochistan economically and that “a weaker Balochistan means a weaker Pakistan.”
He said the rebel attacks could disrupt development works being carried out in the state.
Separatists in Balochistan frequently kill labourers from the country’s eastern Punjab province as part of a campaign to force them out of the province, where a small-scale insurgency has been raging for years.
Most of the killings so far have been blamed on outlawed groups seeking independence from the central government in Islamabad and other groups, including Islamic extremists who have a presence in the province.
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Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Asim Tanveer contributed to this report from Multan, Pakistan.
