QUETTA: Gunmen ambushed a vehicle transporting security forces killing a sailor and wounding two others in the coastal town of Jewni in southwest Pakistan, officials said Sunday.
The Pakistan Navy vehicle came under attack Saturday evening while traveling from Jewni to the Ganz area, said Zahoor Buledi, a Balochistan provincial minister.
The insurgent group Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack.
Two intelligence officials confirmed the minister’s account, saying unidentified attackers opened fire with automatic weapons on the vehicle, which was also carrying Quick Response Force troops.
The attack came a day after five laborers were killed and five others, including two security personnel, were wounded when a roadside bomb went off between the towns of Sibi and Harnai in the same province.
Intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under policy, said a sailor was fatally shot while a barber and another sailor were critically wounded during an exchange of fire with the attackers.
Balochistan Liberation Army spokesman, Azad Baluch, in a message to reporters, said the group killed four Navy officers and wounded two others.
Buledi, the provincial minister, condemned the attack saying the insurgents were trying to demoralize security forces operating against them.
Officials said soon after the incident, security forces rushed to the scene and surrounded the area to try and locate the attackers.
Local administrator Athar Abbas said the body of the sailor and the wounded were shifted to the town hospital and there they were moved to Karachi.
Balochistan has been the locale of a long-running insurgency by Baloch separatist groups who want independence for the mineral and gas rich province that borders Iran and Afghanistan.