New Delhi: An ambush on a security convoy near Mastung in the restive region of Balochistan killed 45 Pakistani soldiers Thursday, according to a report by Balochistan Post. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility for the attack, the third major strike against security personnel in Balochistan in less than two weeks.
The Pakistan Army has confirmed the attack but is yet to reveal the official toll.
BLA spokesperson Jeeyand Baloch said in a statement released to the media that the group’s fighters targeted the security convoy, its escort and additional military reinforcements that arrived after the attack began. The spokesperson said the assault was carried out by the group’s Fateh Squad and described it as a coordinated operation.
He also claimed fighting between BLA militants and Pakistani security forces was continuing when the statement was issued and said casualties could rise as the situation develops.
Pakistan Army launched Operation Shaban this week amid coordinated militant attacks that claimed the lives of 27 police officers in Mangi Dam area of Ziarat district and 11 Pakistani soldiers in Lasbela. According to reports, the operation is being carried out jointly by the Army, Frontier Corps and Balochistan Police, with support from intelligence and air assets.
Responding to the attacks, Pakistan Army spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistan’s military would “hunt” those responsible and warned militants not to expect “rationality and proportionality” in the response.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but least populated province, has long been the centre of a separatist insurgency fuelled by demands for greater political autonomy and a larger share of the province’s natural resources. The province occupies a strategically important position along Pakistan’s borders with Iran and Afghanistan and is home to Gwadar, the deep-water port developed with Chinese investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The province’s mineral wealth and strategic location have made it central to Pakistan’s economic ambitions while also placing it at the centre of its security challenges.
Pakistani media reported that a four-member committee has been tasked with reconstructing the sequence of events, examining possible command failures, reviewing security arrangements around Mangi Dam, and determining whether coordination failures among law enforcement agencies contributed to the attack.
The earlier attacks were carried out between 6 and 9 July, one by the BLA and two by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The TTP attack on 7 July culminated into a hostage crisis. At the time, Pakistan Army spokesperson Chaudhry had told a press conference in Rawalpindi that TTP militants abducted 18 surviving police personnel after seizing a checkpoint. According to the military, all of the hostages were later killed. The killings marked one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani personnel in recent years.
On 8 July, militants ambushed an army convoy near N-25 highway in the Bela-Winder area of Lasbela district, one of the province’s main transport corridors. Pakistan’s military blamed the attack on the BLA, saying 11 soldiers, including a junior commissioned officer and 10 enlisted personnel, were killed. The BLA, however, offered a different account, claiming it had killed 17 soldiers and seized weapons and military equipment from the convoy. Those claims have not been independently verified.
(Edited by Sugita Katyal)