Pakistan says Baloch separatists, local Taliban group behind attacks killing over 50 in southwest

Update  Pakistan says Baloch separatists, local Taliban group behind attacks killing over 50 in southwest
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People look burnt vehicles, torched by gunmen after killing passengers, at a highway in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan province in southwestern Pakistan on Aug. 26, 2024. (AP)
Update  Pakistan says Baloch separatists, local Taliban group behind attacks killing over 50 in southwest
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Pakistan security forces in Balochistan province are battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence. (AFP file photo)
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Updated 27 August 2024
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Pakistan says Baloch separatists, local Taliban group behind attacks killing over 50 in southwest

 Pakistan says Baloch separatists, local Taliban group behind attacks killing over 50 in southwest
  • Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, despite an abundance of untapped natural resources
  • The Baloch Liberation Army is the most active militant separatist group in the region

QUETTA/KARACHI: Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi on Monday blamed Baloch separatists and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) for multiple militant attacks and other acts of violence in the southwestern Balochistan province in the last 24 hours in which over 50 people were killed, excluding insurgents.
Pakistan’s largest province of Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is home to major China-led projects such as a strategic port and a gold and copper mine, has been the site of a decades-long separatist insurgency by ethnic Baloch militants, who say they are fighting what they see as the unfair exploitation of the province’s mineral and gas wealth by the federation at the center. The state denies the allegations, saying it is working for the uplift of the impoverished province through various development schemes.
The eruption of violence at multiple districts of the province on Sunday night poses a major challenge for the weak coalition government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, which is battling an economic crisis and political instability as well as a rise in militant violence by religiously motivated and separatist groups across the country. Balochistan is also currently in the grips of civil rights protests by young ethnic Baloch people, who are calling for an end to what they describe as a pattern of enforced disappearances and other human rights abuses by security forces, who deny the charge.
In the violence that began on Sunday evening, 23 passengers were taken off their vehicles in Musa Khel, a district in the northeast of Balochistan, and shot dead. In another attack, the Pakistan Army said it had killed 21 militants during a clearance operation in which 14 soldiers and police also died. Separately, 10 people, including five security forces personnel, were killed when militants stormed a paramilitary force station in Kalat, while militants also blew up a railway bridge in Bolan in Balochistan’s Kachhi district. Six as yet unidentified bullet-riddled bodies were also found near the bridge, with the circumstances of the killings unclear.
On Sunday, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), the most prominent of several separatist groups operating in Balochistan, said it had attacked a security forces’ camp in Bela area of the Lasbela district, claiming to have killed 68 “enemy personnel.”
“The TTP and many foreign elements are involved in these attacks. We will unmask them all,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters, saying militants operating from safe havens in neighboring Afghanistan were launching attacks in Pakistan, a charge denied by Kabul.
“We know who planned this and who is behind them. They thought carefully and conducted the attacks in a single day,” he said. “The entire leadership has decided that we will respond to them with full force.”
WIDESPREAD ASSAULT
In the first of many attacks on Sunday evening, a senior police official said passengers were taken off vehicles in Musa Khel and at least 23 were shot dead after they were identified as hailing from the Punjab province. Militants also burnt at least 35 trucks, buses and other vehicles.
“Twenty-three people were killed after armed men took them off from vehicles and goods trucks near Rara Sham, an area in Musa Khel,” Ayoub Achakzai, senior superintendent of police in the district, told Arab News on Monday morning.
The army’s media wing said soldiers and other law enforcement “immediately responded and successfully thwarted the evil design of terrorists,” killing 21 militants during a clearance operation.
“However, during the conduct of operations, fourteen brave sons of soil including ten Security Forces soldiers and four personnel of law enforcement agencies, having fought gallantly, made the ultimate sacrifice and embraced shahadat [martyrdom],” the army said.
In a televised press conference, Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti said that “people were taken off buses and killed in front of their families.”
No one has claimed responsibility for the Musa Khel killings yet but in the past, separatists in Balochistan have often killed workers from the country’s eastern Punjab province, who they see as outsiders exploiting the province. Most of such previous killings have been blamed on the outlawed BLA and other groups demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad.
In another attack, SSP Dostain Khan Dashti said ten people, including five from security forces, were killed when unidentified gunmen stormed a station of the Balochistan Paramilitary Levies Force in the central district of Kalat.
“The firing by armed men has left one policeman, four Levies personnel, and five citizens dead,” Dashti said.
Separately, Pakistan Railways suspended train services between Quetta and Sibi on Monday after a key railway bridge near the Dozan area of Bolan was blown up in wee hours of Monday. 
“Security forces have cordoned off the area and Pakistan Railways’ team has reached the site to assess the damages,” a Railways spokesman said.
“Quetta-Sibi highway is blocked for traffic after terrorists destroyed a railway bridge during early hours of Monday and the debris of the bridge fell on the highway,” Kachhi SSP Dost Muhammad Bugti told Arab News, without naming any group behind the assault.
Police in Bolan — a rugged, mountainous area of Kachhi district — said they had found six bullet-riddled bodies close to the destroyed bridge during the early hours of Monday. The circumstances of the killings were unclear and the bodies have yet to be identified.
ATTACK ON ARMY CAMP
On Sunday, the BLA said it had attacked an army camp in the Bela city of Balochistan’s Lasbela district, located around 515 kilometers from the provincial capital of Quetta.
A senior police officer in Bela confirmed the attack on the military camp.
“Security clearance operation is going on as we can still hear sounds of gunshots and explosions from the camp,” Bela police station in-charge Attaullah Jamoot told Arab News. 
The army did not comment on the attack on the Bela camp in its statement, but said militants had attempted to conduct “numerous heinous activities” in Balochistan on the night of Aug. 25-26.
“These cowardly acts of terrorism were aimed at disrupting the peaceful environment and development of Balochistan by targeting mainly the innocent civilians, especially in Musa Khel, Kalat and Labela Districts. Resultantly, numerous innocent civilians embraced shahadat,” the army said.
Video clips widely shared on WhatsApp and X showed long queues of vehicles lined up on various sections of the key Quetta-Karachi highway in the Kalat and Mastung districts of the province.
The BLA said it had “taken full control of all major highways across Balochistan, blocking them completely.”
“The situation is not good in Khad Kocha,” Abdul Shakoor, a paramilitary Levies soldier, told Arab News about an area in the Masung district, some 67 kilometers from Quetta. “There are reports that armed persons have blocked the highway, and they have blown up the Pakistan-Iran railway track near Khad Kocha.”
Shakoor said there was no confirmation as yet of any casualties.
The state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster said “terrorists have carried out cowardly attacks at several places,” without specifying where the assaults took place.
“Security forces and law enforcement agencies responded effectively to these attacks, twelve terrorists have so far been killed and many others are injured,” the broadcaster said. “The operation will continue until the terrorists are eliminated.”
Balochistan CM Bugti said more intelligence-based operations would be launched to weed out militants, hinting at curtailing mobile data services to stop militant coordination.
“They launch attacks, film it and then share it on social media for propaganda,” he said.
Meanwhile, General Li Qiaoming, commander of China’s People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces, and Pakistan’s army chief General Asim Munir met on Monday, though a Pakistani military statement released after the meeting made no mention of the attacks.
The latest attacks coincide with the 18th anniversary of the killing of Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, a prominent Baloch politician and tribal chief who was killed in a military operation on Aug. 26, 2006, sparking deadly protests and inflaming the insurgency in Balochistan.
The impoverished province has seen an uptick in violence in the last few weeks, with separatist groups intensifying attacks ahead of and during Independence Day celebrations earlier this month, in which at least four people were killed.


UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
Updated 5 sec ago
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UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms

UN plastic treaty talks push for breakthrough as deadline looms
  • South Korea is hosting the fifth and final UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week
BUSAN, South Korea: Negotiators at the fifth round of talks aimed at securing an international treaty to curb plastic pollution were striving on Friday to speed up sluggish proceedings and reach a deal by a Dec. 1 deadline.
South Korea is hosting the fifth and final UN Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) meeting to agree globally binding rules on plastics this week.
Until Thursday, several delegates from around 175 countries participating had expressed frustration about the slow pace of the talks amid disagreements over procedure, multiple proposals and some negotiations even returning to ground covered in the past.
In an attempt to speed up the process, INC Chair Luis Vayas Valdivieso is holding informal meetings on Friday to try and tackle the most divisive issues.
These issues include curbing plastic products and chemicals of concern, managing the supply of primary polymers, and a financial mechanism to help developing countries implement the treaty.
Petrochemical-producing nations such as Saudi Arabia strongly oppose efforts to target a cap on plastic production, over the protests of countries that bear the brunt of plastic pollution such as low- and middle-income nations.
While supporting an international treaty, the petrochemical industry has also been vocal in urging governments to avoid setting mandatory plastic production caps, and focus instead on solutions to reduce plastic waste, like recycling.
The INC plans an open a plenary session at 7 p.m. (1000 GMT) on Friday that will provide an indication of how close the talks have moved toward a treaty.

New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry

New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry
Updated 5 min 56 sec ago
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New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry

New Zealand navy vessel hit reef, sank after ‘autopilot’ error: inquiry
  • Dozens of sailors were rescued from the HMNZS Manawanui in October after it struck a reef
  • Vessel burst into flames and finally sank south of Samoa’s most populous island Upolu

WELLINGTON: A New Zealand navy vessel plowed into a reef near Samoa and sank because its crew mistakenly left it on “autopilot,” a military inquiry found on Friday.
Dozens of sailors were rescued from the HMNZS Manawanui in October after it struck a reef, burst into flames and finally sank south of Samoa’s most populous island Upolu.
One of just nine commissioned ships in New Zealand’s small naval fleet, the Manawanui had been dispatched to map the ocean floor.
A military court of inquiry on Friday found the survey vessel had been scuttled because its “autopilot was not disengaged when it should have been.”
“Remaining in autopilot resulted in the ship maintaining a course toward land, until grounding and eventually stranding.”
Crewmembers noticed the ship had veered off course and tried to change direction, believing they had lost control due to a “thruster control failure.”
But they forgot to check if the autopilot had been disengaged first, the tribunal found.
Rather than steering away from danger, the ship “started to accelerate toward the reef.”
Defense Minister Judith Collins said the debacle had “really knocked Navy for six.”
“It was a terrible day. The navy and the defense force are not shying away from this.
“It was extremely disappointing. But that’s what has happened.”
The shipwreck settled on a stable section of reef some 30 meters below the surface.
It was carrying 950 tonnes of diesel when it sank, stirring fears of an oil slick that could kill wildlife and taint crucial food sources.
New Zealand’s navy has said previously that the main fuel tanks appeared to be intact.
Salvage crews were working to retrieve the fuel without major leaks.
No one died in the incident, although a small number of sailors suffered minor injuries.


Protesters clash with police in Georgia over government’s EU application delay

Protesters clash with police in Georgia over government’s EU application delay
Updated 29 November 2024
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Protesters clash with police in Georgia over government’s EU application delay

Protesters clash with police in Georgia over government’s EU application delay
  • Government suspends EU accession talks until 2028
  • Georgian Dream has deepened ties with Russia amid EU tensions

TBILISI: Police clashed with protesters in the Georgian capital Tbilisi early on Friday, after the country’s ruling party said the government would suspend talks on European Union accession and refuse budgetary grants until 2028.
The country’s interior ministry said three police officers were injured.
Police ordered protesters to disperse, fired water cannon and deployed pepper spray and tear gas as masked young people tried to smash their way into the parliament. Some protesters tossed fireworks at police while shouting “Russians” and “Slaves!“
Georgia’s relations with the EU have deteriorated sharply in recent months as Brussels has alleged that the government had resorted to authoritarian measures and adopted pro-Russian stands.
Thousands of pro-EU protesters had blocked streets in the capital before the altercations began. The country’s figurehead president accused the government of declaring “war” on its own people and confronted riot police, asking whether they served Georgia or Russia.
The Georgian Dream governing bloc accused the EU of “a cascade of insults,” saying in a statement it was using the prospect of accession talks to “blackmail” the country, and to “organize a revolution in the country.”
As a result, it said: “We have decided not to put the issue of opening negotiations with the European Union on the agenda until the end of 2028. Also, we refuse any budgetary grant from the European Union until the end of 2028.”
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million has the aim of EU accession written into its constitution and has long been among the most pro-Western of the Soviet Union’s successor states.
With months of downturn in relations between Tbilisi and Brussels, the EU had already said that Georgia’s application for membership was frozen.
Georgian Dream says it is not pro-Russian, and that it is committed to democracy and integration with the West.
It says it still wants to join the EU eventually, but has repeatedly engaged in diplomatic feuds with Brussels in recent years, whilst deepening ties with neighboring Russia.
There was no immediate formal comment from the EU on Georgian Dream’s statement. But an EU official said the impact of Thursday’s move was huge, adding the government was doing what the EU had feared and had hoped it would not.
Opinion polls show that around 80 percent of Georgians support EU membership, and the bloc’s flag flies alongside the national flag outside virtually all government buildings in the country.
The pro-Western opposition reacted to Georgian Dream’s announcement with fury as protesters massed. Local media reported that protests that erupted in provincial cities.

’WAR’ AGAINST PEOPLE
Giorgi Vashadze, a prominent opposition leader, wrote on Facebook: “the self-proclaimed, illegitimate government has already legally signed the betrayal of Georgia and the Georgian people.”
President Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said the ruling party had “declared not peace, but war against its own people, its past and future.”
Zourabichvili’s term ends in December, and Georgian Dream has nominated a former lawmaker with hard-line anti-Western views to replace her.
The opposition says that an October election, in which official results gave the Georgian Dream bloc almost 54 percent of the vote, was fraudulent and have refused to take their seats. Western countries demand a probe into irregularities.
Both Georgian Dream and the country’s election commission say the election was free and fair.
Earlier on Thursday, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists that EU membership might harm Georgia’s economy, as it would require Tbilisi to cancel visa-free agreements and trade deals with other countries.
The EU gave Georgia candidate status in December 2023, but has said that a raft of laws passed since by Georgian Dream, including curbs on “foreign agents” and LGBT rights, are authoritarian, Russian-inspired, and obstacles to EU membership.
Foreign and domestic critics of Georgian Dream say the party, which is seen as dominated by its billionaire founder, ex-prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, is steering Georgia back toward Moscow, from which it gained independence in 1991.
Russia and Georgia have had no formal diplomatic relations since Moscow won a brief 2008 war, but have had a limited rapprochement recently.
Opinion polls show most Georgians dislike Russia, which continues to back two breakaway Georgian regions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking during a visit to Kazakhstan, praised the “courage and character” he said Georgian authorities had shown in passing the law on foreign agents, which domestic critics have likened to Russian legislation. (Reporting by Felix Light Additional reporting by Lili Bayer in Brussels Editing by Mark Trevelyan, Andrew Osborn, William Maclean, Frances Kerry and Ron Popeski)


Russian air defenses destroy, down 30 Ukrainian drones in Rostov region

Russian air defenses destroy, down 30 Ukrainian drones in Rostov region
Updated 29 November 2024
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Russian air defenses destroy, down 30 Ukrainian drones in Rostov region

Russian air defenses destroy, down 30 Ukrainian drones in Rostov region

Russian air defenses destroyed or downed 30 Ukrainian drones in southern Rostov region early on Friday, Regional Governor Yuri Slyusar said.
Slyusar, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said some private homes in two villages had sustained some damage, but there were no casualties.


For the first time, Macron calls 1944 killings of West African troops by French army as massacre

For the first time, Macron calls 1944 killings of West African troops by French army as massacre
Updated 29 November 2024
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For the first time, Macron calls 1944 killings of West African troops by French army as massacre

For the first time, Macron calls 1944 killings of West African troops by French army as massacre
  • Up to 400 West African soldiers who fought for the French Army in the Battle of France in 1940 were massacred on Dec. 1, 1944 by French soldiers over a dispute on unpaid wages
  • Macron recognized the criminal act in a letter to Senegal's President Faye, at a time when France’s influence is declining in the region, with Paris losing its sway in the former French colonies in West Africa

DAKAR, Senegal: French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday for the first time recognized the killing of West African soldiers by the French Army in 1944 as a massacre in a letter addressed to the Senegalese authorities.
Macron’s move, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the World War II killings in Thiaroye — a fishing village on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital of Dakar — comes as France’s influence is declining in the region, with Paris losing its sway in the former French colonies in West Africa.
Between 35 and 400 West African soldiers who fought for the French Army in the Battle of France in 1940 were killed on Dec. 1, 1944 by French soldiers after what the French described as a mutiny over unpaid wages.
The West Africans were members of the unit called Tirailleurs Senegalais, a corps of colonial infantry in the French Army. According to historians, there were disputes over unpaid wages in the days before the massacre but on that Dec. 1, French troops rounded up the West African soldiers, mostly unarmed, and shot and killed them.
Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye said he received the letter, which was seen by The Associated Pres.
Speaking to reporters late on Thursday, Faye said Macron’s step should “open the door” so that the “whole truth about this painful event of Thiaroye” can finally come out.
“We have long sought closure on this story and we believe that, this time, France’s commitment will be full, frank and collaborative,” he added.
“France must recognize that on that day, the confrontation between soldiers and riflemen who demanded their full legitimate wages be paid, triggered a chain of events that resulted in a massacre,” read Macron’s letter.
“It is also important to establish, as far as possible, the causes and facts that led to this tragedy,” Macron added. “I have asked my services to inform me of the progress of the work of the Committee for the Restoration of the Facts, which your government has decided to set up, under the direction of Professor Mamadou Diouf, whose eminence and qualities are recognized by all.”
The letter comes weeks after the Senegalese legislative elections, in which the ruling party PASTEF secured a definite majority. The win granted newly elected President Faye a clear mandate to carry out ambitious reforms promised during the campaign, which include more economic independence from foreign companies, including French ones, which are heavily invested in the country.
France still has around 350 troops in its former colony, mainly in a supportive role. Asked about the presence of French forces, Faye alluded that it would not be something the Senegalese would want.
“Historically, France enslaved, colonized and stayed here,” he said. “Obviously, I think that when you reverse the roles a little, you will have a hard time conceiving that another army, China, Russia, Senegal, or any other country could have a military base in France.”