Scores killed in Pakistan after separatists launch attacks in Balochistan

Insurgents launch assaults on police stations and trains in one of the deadliest attacks in years

More than 70 people including a dozen separatist militants and soldiers were killed after the insurgents launched overnight attacks on police stations, railway lines and vehicles on motorways in Balochistan in south-western Pakistan.

It was one of the deadliest assaults in recent years by ethnic militants who have fought a decades-long ethnic insurgency in Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is Pakistan's largest province.

It is the most resource-rich region in the country with gas, oil and gold deposits but is the least populated, largely underdeveloped and has high levels of poverty.

Government officials on Monday said the Baloch Liberation Army, the biggest of several insurgent groups, carried out the attacks, killing 39 people, AFP news agency reported.

Pakistan's military said 14 soldiers and police, as well as 21 militants, were killed in fighting after the largest of the attacks, which targeted vehicles from buses to goods lorries on a motorway Reuters said.

"We have confirmed 39 people killed in several co-ordinated attacks carried out by the BLA terrorists," Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan provincial government, told AFP.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said the attacks were a “well-thought-out plan to create anarchy in Pakistan”.

The office of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attacks in a statement, vowing that security forces would retaliate and bring those responsible to justice.

The militants targeted vehicles from buses to goods trucks on a major highway in Rarasham district in Musakhail on Sunday night.

They offloaded passengers and shot them after checking their identity cards, before setting as many as 35 vehicles on fire. They also killed lorry drivers, government officials said.

"Vehicles travelling to and from Punjab were inspected, and individuals from Punjab were identified and shot," Najibullah Kakar, a senior official in Musakhail, told AFP.

Rail line between Pakistan and Iran and a railway bridge linking Quetta, the provincial capital, to the rest of the country were also hit with explosives, railways official Muhammad Kashif said.

This led to the suspension of the rail traffic with Quetta.

Police found six unidentified bodies near the site of the attack on the railway bridge, Reuters reported.

The militants also targeted police and security stations in the province, one of which killed at least 10 people - six security personnel, three civilians and one tribal elder.

The BLA also claimed responsibility in a statement emailed to journalists.

It said its fighters had targeted military personnel travelling in civilian clothes, who were shot after being identified. However, Pakistan's Interior Ministry said the dead were innocent citizens.

The group claimed responsibility for other attacks, including on army camps and military checkpoints, saying they had killed 102 soldiers, although Pakistani authorities have not confirmed these numbers.

The BLA has battled the Pakistani government for decades, saying it exploits Balochistan's gas and mineral resources unfairly.

It has targeted workers from the eastern province of Punjab whom it sees as exploiting their resources and in the past, they have also targeted Chinese interests and citizens operating in the province.

Balochistan is an important part of China's $65 billion investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a wing of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative.

China runs the strategic port of Gwadar – the world's largest deepwater port in Balochistan's south – as well as a gold and copper mine in the west.

The BLA seeks the expulsion of China and independence for the province. The group stormed army bases in 2022 and a naval site later that year.

Expanding its traditional use of guerrilla gunmen, it has also recently begun using female suicide bombers, such as in an attack on Chinese citizens on a university campus in Karachi.

Insurgents have been demanding succession since 1948, a year after the subcontinent was divided between India and Pakistan by British colonialists and Balcohistan was acceded to Pakistan, but long-simmering tensions renewed in 2004 and has escalated since the killing of a key Baloch leader in 2006 and unlawful detention and disappearance of other leaders allegedly by the Pakistani government over the years.

Hundreds of Balochs, many of them women, have protested in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and in Balochistan recently over alleged abuse by security forces, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, accusations Pakistan's government denies.