https://arab.news/gj4a4
- One security personnel killed, two others injured during exchange, says official
- Gwadar port is located in Pakistan’s restive insurgency-hit Balochistan province
QUETTA: Pakistan’s security forces have killed all eight “terrorists” who attacked the country’s southwestern Gwadar port, the chief minister of the province where the port is located said on Wednesday.
Commissioner Makran Division Saeed Umrani told Arab News a group of unidentified gunmen attacked the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) Complex on Wednesday afternoon, after which Pakistan Army and police personnel launched a security clearance operation. He confirmed one security personnel had been killed in the exchange while two others had been injured.
Banned outfit Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for attacking the complex, saying that its fighters attacked the offices of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Military Intelligence (MI).
“Eight terrorists tried to attack the Gwadar Port Authority complex today,” Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti wrote on X. “All of them have been neutralized by security forces.”
Bugti said the message was loud and clear, that anyone who chooses violence would not be shown mercy by the state.
Gwadar port is key to the multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a road and energy infrastructure project that aims to improve connectivity between the two countries. It is located in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, which has been the scene of a low-lying insurgency for the past two decades.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s most sparsely populated and poor province by almost all economic indicators. Ethnic Baloch nationalists accuse the state of denying them a share in Balochistan’s mineral resources and now demand independence from the center.
The state rejects these allegations and has vowed to quash any armed rebellion.
China has invested heavily in mineral-rich Balochistan, including developing Gwadar port. Chinese targets have previously come under attack by several militant groups in Pakistan.
In August, gunmen attacked a convoy of Chinese workers in Gwadar with the BLA claiming responsibility for the attack.