At least nine policemen, including two station house officers (SHOs), were killed after dozens of militants attacked a police post overnight in Balochistan’s Ziarat district in southwestern Pakistan.
During the intense gunbattle, nine police officers were killed and a few others got wounded, officials said on Tuesday in the latest escalation of militant violence in the region where insurgents have stepped up attacks on security forces, The Associated Press reported.
Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, informed that the assailants even abducted eight police officers, but all were later recovered by the security forces.
Rind added that 15 Fitna al Khawarij terrorists were killed in a clearance operation initiated following the attack.
Notably, Fitna al Khawarij is the term that the state uses to designate members of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
Rind noted that the intelligence-based operations against militants will continue and vowed that authorities would respond decisively if any such attacks are carried out against security forces.
As of now, no terror outfit has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is expected to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which recently claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a security post in the coastal town of Jiwani.
Officials said that militants “paid a heavy price” for disturbing peace in the region, adding that there would be no safe haven for them in the province and every attack would be met with a “full and decisive response”.