<\/p>\n
Pakistani security forces on Wednesday repulsed a gun and bomb attack by militants on a complex outside the strategic port of Gwadar, which killed all eight militants and two soldiers, officials said.<\/p>\n
China has invested heavily in the mineral-rich southwestern province of Balochistan, including developing Gwadar, despite a decades-long separatist insurgency.<\/p>\n
Armed with guns and bombs, the militants stormed the complex just outside the port that houses offices of government departments, intelligence agencies and paramilitary forces, said Saeed Ahmed Umrani, a government commissioner.<\/p>\n
The militants detonated a number of bombs before launching a shooting attack and trying to storm the complex, he told Reuters.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media platform X, Provincial Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said eight militants were “neutralised by security forces.” He added: “The message is loud & clear. Whosoever chooses to use violence will see no mercy from the state.”<\/p>\n
Two soldiers were also killed, said a Pakistan army statement, which said the attack was successfully thwarted by the troops deployed at the facility.<\/p>\n
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of several separatist groups in Balochistan, claimed responsibility for the assault in a statement, saying its militants attacked Pakistan intelligence agencies’ offices.<\/p>\n
The BLA has previously been involved in attacks on Pakistani and Chinese interests in the region and elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The deep-water port is key to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that also encompasses roads and energy projects and is part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative.<\/p>\n
Chinese targets have previously come under attack by several Baloch militant groups in Pakistan, who say they have been fighting for decades for a larger share in the regional wealth of mines and minerals denied by the central government in Islamabad.<\/p>\n
(Reuters – Reporting by Saleem Ahmed; Writing by Asif Shahzad and Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by YP Rajesh, Mark Heinrich, Nick Macfie and Leslie Adler)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pakistani security forces on Wednesday repulsed a gun and bomb attack by militants on a complex outside the strategic port of Gwadar, which killed all eight militants and two soldiers, officials said. China has invested heavily in the mineral-rich southwestern province of Balochistan, including developing Gwadar, despite a decades-long separatist insurgency. Armed with guns and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/40740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}