Troops search for attackers after 6 soldiers killed
Multiple blasts in Balochistan also wounded 17 civilians
The Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks across Pakistan since November, when they unilaterally ended a ceasefire after accusing the military of violating the truce.
Pakistani forces expanded their search yesterday for the perpetrators behind multiple attacks that killed six troops and wounded 17 civilians in a restive southwestern province the previous day.
The top government official in the southwestern Balochistan province, Abdul Aziz Uqaili, said there were a total of nine attacks in the province on Sunday.
No civilians were killed in the attacks, he tweeted. Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif condemned the violence.
Earlier, the military in a statement said five soldiers, including an army captain, were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a security forces’ vehicle during a clearance operation in Kahan, a remote area in Balochistan bordering Afghanistan. No militant group has claimed responsibility for the bombing.
More than one incident
The sixth soldier was killed in a shoot-out with the Pakistani Taliban in the Sambaza area of Zhob district, according to Azfar Mohesar, a senior police official. A militant was also killed in the shoot-out, he said.
In the provincial capital of Quetta, 12 people were wounded when assailants threw a hand grenade in a bazaar near a residential area, Mohesar added. Elsewhere in Balochistan, five people were wounded in attacks in the towns of Kalat, Khuzdar and Hub.
The Pakistani Taliban — known also as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP — have stepped up attacks across Pakistan since November, when they unilaterally ended a ceasefire after accusing the military of violating the truce.
The militant group is an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan last year as US and Nato troops were in the final stages of their pullout. The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.
Also, unrelated to TTP, separatists in Balochistan have long waged a low-level insurgency seeking independence from the central government in Islamabad.
Last month, TTP called off a shaky ceasefire with the government and ordered fighters to stage attacks across the country.
The TTP has conducted dozens of major attacks in Pakistan.
According to sources closed-door discussions are ongoing and major decisions are expected in the next couple of weeks.
A meeting of the National Security Committee is likely to be convened to debate and take crucial measures against the renewed threat from the TTP.