Gunmen kill 20 miners, wound 7 in attack in southwest Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan â€”  Gunmen killed 20 miners and wounded seven others in Pakistan’s southwest, a police official said Friday, drawing condemnation from authorities who have ordered police to find and arrest those who are behind the killings.

It’s the latest attack in restive Baluchistan province and comes days ahead of a major security summit being hosted in the Pakistani capital.

The gunmen stormed the accommodations at the coal mine in Duki district late Thursday night, rounded up the men and opened fire, police official Hamayun Khan Nasir said. He said the attackers also fired rockets and lobbed grenades at the coal mine and damaged mining machinery before fleeing.

Most of the men were from Pashtun areas of Baluchistan. Three of the dead and four of the wounded were Afghan. Angered over the attack, local shop owners pulled their shutters down to observe a daylong strike against the killing.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which often targets civilians and security forces.

Authorities say police and paramilitary forces are searching for the attackers.

The group committed multiple attacks in August that killed more than 50 people, to which authorities responded by killing 21 insurgents in the province. Those killed included 23 passengers, mostly from eastern Punjab province, who were shot after being taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail district in Baluchistan.

The latest attack drew a strong condemnation from Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi and Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Baluchistan, who said the “terrorists have once again targeted poor laborers.�

Bugti said the attackers were cruel and aimed to destabilize Pakistan. “The killing of these innocent laborers [will] be avenged,� he said in a statement.

Naqvi said those who killed the laborers would not be able to escape from the grip of the law.

The province is home to several separatist groups who want independence. They accuse the federal government in Islamabad of unfairly exploiting oil- and mineral-rich Baluchistan at the expense of locals.

On Monday, the Baloch Liberation Army said it carried out an attack on Chinese nationals outside Pakistan’s biggest airport. The bodies of two slain Chinese engineers were sent to Beijing by plane Thursday night, according to security officials.

Two suspects linked to a 2021 bombing that killed nine Chinese nationals and four Pakistanis working on a dam in the northwest were killed Friday in eastern Pakistan, counterterrorism police officials said in a statement.

Police said the suspects were killed when armed men attacked a van in which the men were being transported to a prison in Sahiwal, a district in Punjab province. No officers were harmed in the shootout, the statement said.

There are thousands of Chinese working in the country, most of them involved in Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects.

The explosion, which the BLA said was the work of a suicide bomber, also raised questions about the ability of Pakistani forces to protect high-profile events or foreigners in the country.

Islamabad is hosting a summit next week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group founded by China and Russia to counter Western alliances. Authorities have deployed troops to beef up security in the capital.

The Ministry of Interior this week had alerted the country’s four provinces to take additional measures to enhance security, warning that the separatist groups and the Pakistani Taliban could launch attacks at public places and government installations.

The killing of the miners came hours after Saudi and Pakistani businessmen signed 27 memorandums of understanding valued at $2 billion for investment across various sectors, including mining in oil- and gas-rich Baluchistan. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif attended the signing of the memorandums in Islamabad.

Saudi Arabia also wants to invest in Reko Diq, a district in Baluchistan famed for its mineral wealth, including gold and copper. Baluchistan’s Gwardar port is an anchor in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of the Belt and Road Initiative, and BLA has asked the Chinese to leave the province to avoid attacks.

Sattar writes for the Associated Press.