Unidentified gunmen attacked a cluster of small personal coal mines in southwestern Pakistan early on Friday, capturing some miners as they slept and lining up others earlier than opening hearth, killing 21 within the restive area, police mentioned.
The assault by 40 armed males days earlier than Pakistan hosts a summit of the Shanghai Co-operation Group grouping is the worst in weeks within the mineral-rich province of Balochistan bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
“The armed terrorists remained for round 1-1/2 hours within the mining space,” regional police official Asif Shafi informed Reuters. “They fired rockets and hurled grenades on the mines and miners’ quarters.”
There was no fast declare of accountability for the assault on the mines of the Junaid Coal Co within the Duki space, which injured six. Among the many lifeless had been 4 Afghan nationals and one other 4 had been injured.
Companies and retailers had been shut in Duki as tons of of individuals gathered together with the our bodies of the lifeless in a protest to demand the arrest of the attackers, police mentioned.
“We had been receiving threats from the militants for a while however there was no details about the assault,” mentioned mine-owner Khairullah Nasar, who can also be the chairman of the district council.
The attackers burnt down all 10 mines, together with the tools and equipment inside, he added.
A decades-long insurgency in Balochistan has led to frequent militant assaults in opposition to the federal government to press calls for for a share of regional sources.
A number of assaults have focused migrant staff, together with some from Afghanistan, employed by smaller, privately operated mines.
The federal government was “decided to root out all types of terrorism”, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif mentioned in an announcement.
“The provincial authorities has ordered an investigation and a case has been registered in opposition to unknown assailants underneath the terrorism legislation,” a authorities official mentioned, talking on situation of anonymity.
Pakistan has seen a resurgence in Islamist militancy since 2022, when a ceasefire between the Pakistani Taliban and the federal government broke down.
Two Chinese language nationals working for an influence plant had been killed this week in a blast within the southern metropolis of Karachi, for which the Baloch Liberation Military (BLA), one in all a number of rebel teams battling the federal government, claimed accountability.
The BLA was additionally behind Balochistan’s most widespread violence in years in August, which focused police stations, railway strains, and highways, killing greater than 70 individuals.
Armed males who stormed the residence of labourers from the jap province of Punjab final month killed seven.
On Friday, cross-fire between police and attackers killed two suspected militants concerned in a 2021 assault on dam challenge staff that killed 13, together with 9 Chinese language nationals.
