 | Springtime for Bugtis and Baluchistan... |
Eight soldiers were killed and 23 wounded in a fierce battle with tribal militants in Pakistan's troubled southwest, the military said on Friday, while a tribal politician said dozens of tribesmen died. On Friday, a day after the clashes in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, bombs exploded in two trains in the troubled region, killing two people and wounding nine. Military officials said the soldiers died on Thursday after gunmen from the Bugti tribe opened fire on a Frontier Constabulary convoy on the outskirts of the town of Dera Bugti. "Eight of our soldiers have been killed and 23 injured," constabulary spokesman Colonel Rizwan Malick said. Baluch nationalist opposition politician Kachkol Ali told reporters in the provincial capital Quetta that at least 50 tribal people died and 150 were wounded in the fighting, which lasted about 10 hours. Dera Bugti is about 150 miles southeast of Quetta.
Railway officials said a bomb exploded in the lavatory of a Quetta-bound train near the town of Mach killing one man and wounding six others. Another bomb went off in a train near the town of Sibi, about 60 miles southeast of Quetta, killing one man and wounding three people. A grenade was also thrown at the house of a railway official in Quetta, but no one was hurt. No one claimed responsibility but officials have previously blamed such attacks on Baluch nationalists. Baluch militants have been waging a low-level insurgency for greater autonomy for decades in Pakistan's largest but poorest province, but they have stepped up attacks on government targets, including natural gas and transport facilities, in recent weeks. Military officials said a ceasefire was agreed on Thursday to allow both sides to collect their dead and wounded from Dera Bugti and this was holding.The military convoy had been on its way to the remote town of Sui, where there the military has beefed up security since a big militant attack on the country's largest gas field on Jan. 11 disrupted supplies for more than a week. "Around 100 heavily armed tribesmen attacked the convoy comprising around 40 paramilitary soldiers led by a colonel," a military official said on the condition of anonymity. "The soldiers were forced to retaliate." Around 400 tribesmen also attacked a security post manned by up to 20 paramilitary soldiers on the outskirts of Dera Bugti, he said. "The Bugti tribesmen used multi-barrel rocket launchers. The fighting lasted for around 10 hours, despite repeated attempts to reach a ceasefire," he said. "It was a very tense situation." |