Pakistani forces kill 145 militants after deadly attacks in Balochistan
Pakistani forces have killed at least 145 Baloch fighters after deadly militant attacks took the lives of dozens in Balochistan province.
In a series of coordinated gun and bomb attacks, which began early on Saturday at multiple locations across southwestern Balochistan, the militants linked to the banned separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) had killed 48 people — including 17 security personnel and 31 civilians, five of them women.
In response, Pakistani troops and police officers launched a widespread manhunt, resulting in the swift killing of 145 militant members of the separatist BLA group, also known as “Fitna al-Hindustan.”
“The bodies of these 145 killed terrorists are in our custody,” Balochistan’s Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said.
Bugti said some of the “Indian-backed terrorists” in the outfit were Afghan nationals who were operating from that country and aimed to make it to the city center, where they wanted to take hostages, but failed.
“We had intelligence reports that this kind of operation was being planned, and as a result of those, we started pre-operations a day before,” Bugti said, noting that the death toll of the militants killed over the past two days was the highest number in decades.
He added that in total, 700 BLA militants had been killed in the past year by the Islamabad forces.
Pakistan’s Federal Minister for Defence, Khawaja Muhammad Asif, said the coordinated terrorist attacks were carried out on Saturday at twelve different locations across Balochistan.
Addressing reporters at his residence in Sialkot, Asif said the organized nature of the attacks reflected a clear nexus, two sides of the same coin, between India and the BLA. He reiterated that the BLA operated as a proxy of India.
New Delhi and Kabul both deny allegations of involvement in Balochistan terrorist attacks.
Spokesman for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal, said instead of accusing a neighboring country of involvement in the terrorist attacks, Islamabad should address the “longstanding demands of its people in the region.”
Sayid Mojibollah Beheshti, an expert on international affairs in Afghanistan, told local media Ava Press that Islamabad officials put the blame on neighboring countries to shirk their responsibility in dealing with the roots of the longstanding problems of the Baloch ethnic population in Balochistan.
Following a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Indian-administered Kashmir, last year, tensions between India and Pakistan sharply escalated.
New Delhi blamed Islamabad for the attack. Islamabad rejected. However, the incident marked an escalation in violence that has dented New Delhi’s narrative of stability in the disputed Muslim-majority region.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since 1947, when British tyrannical rule ended in the region, with both countries claiming it in full and fighting multiple wars over its control.