QUETTA: At least five paramilitary troops were killed and one was injured when a roadside blast targeted a security forces convoy in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, a police official said on Monday.
The blast occurred in Narhan, a mountainous area located some 65 kilometers from Balocistan’s Dukki city, when the convoy was returning from a poppy cultivation site, according to Dukki Superintendent of Police (SP) Mansoor Buzdar.
The security convoy comprised members of the Frontier Corps (FC) paramilitary force, Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF), Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) and police.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but ethnic Baloch separatists and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have often targeted Pakistani forces in the region.
“Five soldiers of the FC paramilitary force were killed in the latest targeted blast while one received injuries,” Buzdar told Arab News. “Security forces have cordoned off the area while the bodies are being shifted to Dukki.”
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but most impoverished province, has been the site of a long-running insurgency that has intensified in recent years. The province has also witnessed smuggling of goods and drugs by organized networks along its porous border with Iran and Afghanistan.
Late last year, the provincial government launched an anti-drug campaign in the region.
“Security forces have been regularly conducting operations against poppy cultivation,” Buzdar said, adding they were returning from one such operation when they were targeted this evening.
The development came hours after the federal government announced it will deploy two wings of Federal Constabulary paramilitary force, comprising 3,000 personnel, to Balochistan in a bid to bolster security and establish peace in the region.
“We are fully aware of the situation in Balochistan and will provide all possible assistance to establish peace [in the region],” Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said at a meeting to review law and order in the province.
