Quetta:
Rebels in southwest Pakistan killed at least five soldiers and wounded more than 30 on Sunday, police told AFP, days after an attack on a train in Balochistan province left dozens dead.
“There were seven buses in the convoy which was heading to Taftan (on the Iranian border). At Noshki, a car laden with explosives hit one of the buses,” said Mohammed Zafar, a police official in Noshki, a town in Balochistan.
Five people were killed and 35 wounded, he said.
The attack was claimed by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the main separatist group in the province, which said the bombing was carried out by its suicide attack branch.
The BLA on Tuesday attacked a train with 450 passengers on board, sparking a two-day siege during which dozens of people were killed.
The railway attack drew attention to the spiral of violence in Balochistan, which also borders Afghanistan and where separatists accuse outsiders of plundering the province’s natural resources.
Separately, three members of the security forces were killed Saturday evening in the neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province according to police sources.
The northwestern province has seen a rise in attacks by the Pakistani Taliban since the Afghan Taliban — with which it shares a common ideology and lineage — returned to power in Kabul in 2021.
According to an AFP count, since January 1 around 130 people, the majority members of the security forces, have been killed in violence carried out by armed groups fighting against the state — mainly in the west bordering Afghanistan.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)