Gunmen killed 21 miners and wounded six others in Pakistan's southwest, a police official said Friday, drawing condemnation from authorities as a search was launched for the assailants. The latest attack in the restive Balochistan province came days ahead of a major security summit being hosted in the capital. The gunmen stormed a coal mine in the Duki district late Thursday night, rounded up the men, and opened fire, police official Hamayun Khan Nasir said, per the AP. He noted that the attackers also fired rockets, lobbed grenades at the mine, and damaged machinery before fleeing. Most of the casualties were from Pashto-speaking areas of Balochistan. Three of the dead and four of the wounded were Afghan.
No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which targets civilians and security forces. The province is home to several separatist groups who want independence and accuse the federal government in Islamabad of unfairly exploiting oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan at the expense of locals. Foreign investors, many from China, have pumped billions of dollars in investment into Balochistan, but the separatists say few of the profits from development reach the local area.
The BLA launched multiple attacks in August that killed more than 50, including 23 people, mostly from eastern Punjab province, who were fatally shot after being taken from buses, vehicles, and trucks in the Musakhail district in Balochistan. Authorities responded by killing 21 insurgents in the province. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his deep sorrow over the coal mine killings and vowed to eliminate terrorism.
story continues below
Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Balochistan, said that "terrorists have once again targeted poor laborers." He added that the attackers were cruel and had an agenda to destabilize Pakistan. "The killing of these innocent laborers will be avenged," he said in a statement. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, meanwhile, said those who killed the laborers wouldn't be able to escape the grip of the law. More here. (More Pakistan stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
