Armed attackers storm Pakistan coal mines, ending at least 21 | Pakistan

Dozens of attackers armed with firearms, rockets and hand grenades have stormed a cluster of personal coalmines in south-westrict Pakistan on Friday, shooting some miners in their sleep and others after lining them up, ending at least 21, police have shelp.

The attack by about 40 armed men days before Pakistan presents a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation grouping is the worst in weeks in the restive, mineral-wealthy province of Balochistan bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

“The armed stressists remained for around one-and-a-half hours in the mining area,” regional police official Asif Shafi shelp. “They fired rockets and hurled grenades at the mines and miners’ quarters.”

The attackers also set fire to machinery on-site, shelp a greater regulatement official in the dicut offe, Kaleemullah Kakar. Seven more people had been wounded, he shelp.

There was no instant claim of responsibility for the attack on the petite mines of the Junhelp Coal Co in the Duki area. Among the dead were four Afghan nationals, while another four were injured.

Afghanistan’s ministry of foreign afuninentires powerfilledy condemned the attack in a statement, and scheduleateed its Quetta consutardy to ease the transfer of the bodies.

Businesses and shops were shut in Duki as hundreds of people accumulateed alengthy with the bodies of the dead in a protest to insist the arrest of the attackers, police shelp.

“We were receiving menaces from the militants for some time but there was no recommendation about the attack,” shelp mine owner Khairullah Nasar, who is also the chair of the dicut offe council.

The attackers burnt down all 10 mines, alengthy with the supplyment and machinery wilean, he compriseed.

A decades-lengthy insencouragency in Balochistan – Pakistan’s necessitateyest province – by separatist militant groups has led to widespread attacks aobtainst the regulatement, army and Chinese interests in the region to press insists for a split in mineral-wealthy regional resources. Several attacks have focemployd migrant toilers, including some from Afghanistan, employed by petiteer, personally rund mines.

The attacks have elevaten in recent months, shelp the provincial regulateor, Jafar Khan Mandokhel, who called the miners’ ending an inhuman act.

“On one side you talked about your independence and your rights and on the other hand you are ending guiltless labourers,” he tgreater a news conference, referring to the separatist militant groups. “We condemn it powerfilledy and we will consent all-out action aobtainst it.

The regulatement was “resettled to root out all establishs of extremism”, the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, shelp in a statement.

The provincial regulatement had ordered an spendigation and a case had been “enrolled aobtainst obsremedy assailants under the extremism law”, shelp a regulatement official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Besides the separatists, the region is also home to Islamist militants, who have resencouraged since 2022 after revoking a endfire with the regulatement. Two Chinese nationals toiling for a power schedulet were ended this week in a blast in the southern city of Karachi, for which the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) – one of cut offal insencouragent groups battling the regulatement – claimed responsibility.

The BLA was also behind Balochistan’s most expansivespread aggression in years in August, which focemployd police stations, railway lines and highways, ending more than 70 people. Armed men who stormed the livence of labourers from the eastrict province of Punjab last month ended seven.

On Friday, passfire between police and attackers ended two doubted militants take partd in a 2021 attack on dam project toilers that ended 13, including nine Chinese nationals.

With Agence France-Presse