Gunmen kill dozens in multiple attacks in one of the deadliest days in a Pakistani province

QUETTA, Pakistan -- Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 38 people in three separate attacks on Monday, officials said, while the military said security forces killed 21 insurgents, marking one of the deadliest days of violence in the restive Baluchistan province, with reports of other shootings and destruction in the area as well.

Twenty-three people were fatally shot overnight after being taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan, senior police official Ayub Achakzai said. The attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing.

In a separate attack, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passersby, in Baluchistan's Qalat district, authorities said. The bodies of six people were found in Bolan, where insurgents also blew up a railway track. They also attacked a police station in Mastung and attacked and burned vehicles in Gwadar, all districts in Baluchistan. No casualties were reported in those attacks.

The military said 14 security forces were “martyred” while responding to the attacks. Those appeared to be included in the overall death toll.

“Sanitization operations are being conducted and the instigators, perpetrators, facilitators and abettors of these heinous and cowardly acts, targeting innocent civilians, will be brought to justice,” the military said in a statement.

Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Baluchistan, told reporters in Quetta that operations against the insurgents are underway, and “those who killed our innocent civilians and security with be dealt with a full force.”

Baluchistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in Pakistan, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, mainly on security forces. The separatists have been demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. Although Pakistani authorities say they have quelled the insurgency, violence in Baluchistan has persisted.

The attack in Musakhail came hours after the outlawed Baluch Liberation Army separatist group warned people to stay away from highways as they launched attacks on security forces in various parts of the province.

But there there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest killings.

In a statement on Monday, the BLA only said it inflicted heavy losses on security forces in attacks in the province. Pakistan's military and government did not immediately comment on that claim. The group often provides exaggerated figures of troop casualties.

It said one female suicide bomber also took part in the attack on security forces.

Separatists are known to ask people for their ID cards, and then abduct or kill those who are from outside the province. Many recent victims have come from neighboring Punjab province.

Uzma Bukhari, a spokesperson for the Punjab provincial government, denounced the latest killings, saying the “attacks are a matter of grave concern” and urging the Baluchistan government to “step up efforts to eliminate BLA terrorists.”

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in separate statements called the attack in Musakhail “barbaric” and vowed that those behind it would not escape justice.

In May, gunmen fatally shot seven barbers in Gwadar, a port city in Baluchistan.

In April, separatists killed nine people after abducting them from a bus on a highway in Baluchistan. They also killed two people and wounded six in another car they forced to stop. The BLA claimed responsibility for those attacks.

Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the latest killings of non-Baluch people are an attempt by separatists to harm the province economically.

Ali told The Associated Press that most such attacks are carried out with the aim of weakening Baluchistan economically, noting that “the weakening of Baluchistan means the weakening of Pakistan.”

Separatists in Baluchistan have often killed workers and others from the country's eastern Punjab region as part of a campaign to force them to leave the province.

Most such previous killings have been blamed on the outlawed group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban also have a presence in the province, and they are closely connected to the BLA.

In a separate attack on Monday in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, a roadside bomb killed four people and wounded 12 others in North Waziristan district, said local administration official Abid Khan.

The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, is a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

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Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writers Asim Tanveer in Multan, Pakistan, and Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.