QUETTA/ISLAMABAD, 16 June 2007 — Police made more than a dozen arrests yesterday after tribal militants shot dead 10 security personnel in southwest Pakistan, officials said.
The outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the ambush on Thursday night. The group wants more autonomy for ethnic Baloch people.
The attackers pumped bullets into a van carrying soldiers. Eight soldiers and one policeman were killed instantly and four people were wounded. One of the injured died in hospital overnight, said Dr. Ghulam Haider of the Quetta Civil Hospital. The attack happened directly outside the city’s railway station. Police said up to four attackers followed the victims in a Suzuki car and fled after the attack.
Senior police officer Rahul Khan Brohi told AFP that 17 people had been arrested in raids overnight. “They are being interrogated,” Brohi said. More arrests were expected as raids continued yesterday, he added.
“We launched the attack to avenge the killings of our innocent people in military operations including bombing raids,” Balochistan Liberation Army spokesman Beeberg Baloch said in a telephone call to Quetta press club. “It was a retaliatory strike and such attacks will continue,” he vowed.
Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr. Sher Afgan Niazi told the National Assembly yesterday if the situation in Balochistan was not controlled Pakistan might face another split.
Referring to the killing of the security personnel Niazi said the sense of deprivation and discontentment among the people of Balochistan will have to be removed.
