At least 56 people, including 12 terrorists, were killed in clashes and terrorist attacks that lasted several hours in southwestern Pakistan, officials said.
Gunmen have killed 23 passengers in the southwestern province of Balochistan after forcing them to disembark from several vehicles, the latest in a series of heinous terror incidents in the province.
The incident took place near Musakel district, where heavily armed militants blocked a key road, stopped several vehicles and disembarked the passengers before opening fire.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti confirmed the incident, saying terrorists were targeting innocent people, promising that the attackers and their partners would be brought to justice.
According to the police, the attackers set fire to at least ten vehicles before fleeing.
Local “Geo News” published a video of several burned and partially burned vehicles on the side of the road.
Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan government, said the terrorists searched the buses and trucks and checked the identities of the passengers before killing them.
In addition, ten other people, including five security personnel and as many civilians, were killed in an overnight clash between militants and police on a highway in Balochistan’s Kalat district, city police chief Dostin Dashti said.
The police announced that 12 attackers have been killed in the clashes so far, and several have been injured.
Also, armed assailants stormed and held a police station in the province’s Mastung district for several hours.
They set fire to several vehicles that were parked in the area of the police station.
Police said they regained control of the police station, forcing the attackers to flee.
However, the body of an unknown man was found in front of the police station.
Meanwhile, a bomb blast in Bolan district destroyed a key railway bridge, killing two people and halting rail traffic between Balochistan and other provinces.
Separately, local police found four bullet-riddled bodies in the mountains of Bolan district.
The Balochistan Liberation Army, a banned separatist group, claimed responsibility for the attacks in a statement to local media.
In the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, at least four people were killed and several injured in a remote-controlled bomb explosion in the town of Rizmak in the North Waziristan tribal district, which borders Afghanistan.
Pakistan has seen an increase in terrorist attacks in recent years.
