Written by Saleem Ahmed
QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Dozens of attackers armed with guns, rockets and hand grenades stormed a cluster of small private coal mines in southwestern Pakistan, killing miners as they slept and shooting others after they lined up, killing at least 21. in the troubled region, police said.
The attack by about 40 armed men days before Pakistan is due to host a summit of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization is the worst in weeks in the mineral-rich Balochistan province on Afghanistan’s border with Iran.
“The armed terrorists stayed for about 1-1/2 hours in the mine area,” regional police chief Asif Shafi told Reuters. “They fired rockets and threw bombs at the mines and at the mine workers’ quarters.”
There was no immediate claim for the attack on Junaid Coal Co mines in Duki area, which also injured six.
Among the dead were four Afghans; four others were injured.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan strongly condemned the attack in a statement, and assigned its embassy in Quetta to carry out the transfer of the bodies.
Businesses and shops were closed in Duki as hundreds of people gathered with dead bodies in a protest demanding the arrest of the attackers, police said.
“We have been receiving threats from the military for some time but there was no information about the attack,” said mine owner Khairullah Nasar, who is also the chairman of the district council.
The attackers set fire to all 10 mines, as well as the machinery and equipment inside, he added.
The decades-long insurgency in Balochistan by opposition groups has led to frequent attacks against the government, the military and Chinese interests in the region to enforce demands for a share of the region’s mineral-rich resources.
Several attacks have targeted migrant workers, including those from Afghanistan, employed by small, privately run mines.
Attacks have increased in recent months, said provincial Governor Jafar Khan Mandokhel, who called the killing of miners an inhuman act.
“On the one hand you talked about your independence and your rights and on the other hand you are killing innocent workers,” he told a press conference, referring to the opposition groups, adding, “We strongly condemn it and we will take everything – take action against it.”
The government is “determined to eliminate all forms of terrorism”, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement.
“The provincial government has issued an order for an investigation and a case has been registered against unknown attackers under the law of terrorism,” said a government official who did not wish to be named.
Apart from the separatists, the region is also home to Islamist militants, who have been resurgent since 2022 after withdrawing from a truce with the government.
Two Chinese workers at a power plant were killed this week in an explosion in the southern city of Karachi, in which the Baloch Liberation Army, one of the rebel groups fighting the government, claimed responsibility.
The BLA was also responsible for Balochistan’s worst violence in years in August, which targeted police stations, railways and highways, killing more than 70 people.
Gunmen stormed a labor camp in the eastern province of Punjab last month, killing seven.
On Friday, a shootout between police and attackers killed two suspects involved in an attack on dam project workers in 2021 that left 13 dead, including nine Chinese.
