https://arab.news/5r74k
- This was third attack on police in past 10 days, previously two policemen were killed in roadside bombing on Sept. 14
- Separatists militants have been fighting decades-long insurgency to win secession of resource-rich Balochistan province
QUETTA: Ten people, including two policemen, were wounded on Wednesday in an IED attack on a police van in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, officials said.
Separatist militants have been fighting a decades-long insurgency to win secession of the resource-rich southwestern province, home to major China-led projects such as a port and a gold and copper mine. Last month, over 50 people including soldiers were killed in a string of coordinated attacks on police stations, railway lines and highways in the most widespread assault in years.
Quetta Superintendent of Police Muhammad Baloch said a police vehicle was targeted with an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) fitted in a motorbike near Bhosa Mandi in the eastern bypass area of the city on Wednesday.
“The police van was on routine morning patrol duty in the Bhosa Mandi area when it came under attack,” Baloch said.
Dr. Ishaq Panezai, medical superintendent of the Civil Hospital Quetta, said 10 injured people were brought to the hospital. Two were in critical condition and had been shifted to the Trauma Center.
This was the third attack on police in the past 10 days. In the last attack, two policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast on the Kuchlak-Bostan highway on Sept. 14. The assault was claimed by Daesh.
The attack also comes three days after three officials of Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) were killed in an ambush near Zhob, a district in Balochistan close to Pakistan’s restive northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.