QUETTA, Pakistan — Pakistani police and military forces killed 145 “Indian-backed terrorists ” in counter-terrorism operations across the restive southwestern province of Balochistan over the last 40 hours, government officials said Sunday, a day after coordinated suicide and gun attacks by militants killed 33 people, mostly civilians.
The militant raids began early Saturday at locations across Balochistan and left 18 civilians, including five women and three children, and 15 security personnel dead, authorities said.
Sarfraz Bugti, the provincial chief minister, told reporters in Quetta that troops and police officers responded swiftly, killing 145 members of “Fitna al-Hindustan,” a phrase the government uses for the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, which it says is backed by India. The number of militants killed over the last two days, which officials revised from an original tally of 92, was the highest in decades, he said.
“The bodies of these 145 killed terrorists are in our custody, and some of them are Afghan nationals,” he said. Bugti claimed that the ”Indian-backed terrorists” wanted to take hostages but failed to make it to the city center.
He spoke alongside senior government official Hamza Shafqat, who often oversees such operations against insurgents in the province, and praised the military, police and paramilitary forces for repelling the assaults.
Militant attacks erupted Saturday in Balochistan, a resource-rich region where Pakistan is seeking to attract foreign investment in mining and minerals. In September, a U.S. metals company signed a $500-million investment agreement with Pakistan, a month after the U.S. State Department designated BLA and its armed wing as a foreign terrorist organization.
Residents described scenes of panic after a suicide bombing killed several police officers Saturday.
It “was a very scary day in the history of Quetta,” resident Khan Muhammad said. “Armed men were roaming openly on the roads before security forces arrived.”
Bugti repeatedly accused India and Afghanistan of backing the assailants and said senior leaders of the BLA, which claimed responsibility for the latest attacks in Balochistan, were operating from Afghan territory. The Indian and Afghan governments deny the allegations.
He said Sunday that Afghanistan’s Taliban government had pledged under the 2020 Doha agreement to not allow Afghan soil to be used as a base for attacking other countries, but “unfortunately, the Afghan soil was still being used against Pakistan.”
Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have persisted since early October, when Pakistan carried out airstrikes on what it described as Pakistani Taliban hideouts in Afghanistan, killing dozens of alleged insurgents.
Bugti said militants stormed the home of a Baloch laborer in Gwadar and killed five women and three children. He condemned the killings and said the attackers had planned to seize hostages after storming government offices in Quetta’s high-security zone but were thwarted. “We were aware of their plans, and our forces were prepared,” he said.
The BLA is banned in Pakistan and has carried out numerous attacks in recent years, often targeting security forces, Chinese interests and infrastructure projects.
Authorities say the group has operated with support from the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which is allied with Afghanistan’s Taliban, who returned to power in August 2021.
Balochistan has long faced a separatist insurgency by ethnic Baloch groups seeking greater autonomy or independence from Pakistan’s central government. The BLA regularly targets Pakistani security forces and has also attacked civilians, including Chinese nationals among the thousands working on various projects in the province.
Sattar and Ahmed write for the Associated Press and reported from Quetta and Islamabad, Pakistan, respectively.
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