Alwaght- Gunmen have attacked Pakistani police and paramilitary soldiers in the southwestern city of Quetta on Tuesday, killing six officers and wounding 15 more.
Reports indicate that one suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a police truck. “It is a suicide attack,” provincial police chief Moazzam Jah Ansari said. Two suicide bombers tried to attack a paramilitary checkpoint on the city’s outskirts half an hour earlier. The troops had opened fire at the attackers, who detonated their explosives, wounding eight soldiers, a paramilitary officer said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Chief Minister Balochistan Abdul Quddus Bizenjo, noted that the sacrifices of security institutions for the sake of restoration of peace would not go in vain.
In January this year, at least seven people were killed on Quetta's Zarghoon Road when a suicide bomber rammed into a parked police truck, injuring 16 people.
Balochistan has faced a number of security challenges in recent months, with security personnel in the province often being targeted in roadside explosions and suicide attacks.
Five people were killed and 27 others had suffered injuries in a suicide attack on a convoy of a paramilitary force in the Sariab Road area of Quetta in November last year.
In October, seven policemen belonging to the Rapid Response Group (RRG) of Balochistan Police and a passer-by were killed in a suicide blast, also in Sariab area.
Fifteen people, including eight soldiers, were martyred when a suicide bomber targeted a military truck near the Pishin bus stop in Quetta in August.
Earlier in June, 14 people ─ including seven policemen ─ lost their lives in a suicide blast that shook Shuhada Chowk in Quetta's Gulistan Road area.
Balochistan has been experiencing incidents of violence and targeted killings for over a decade. More than 1,400 incidents targeting the minority Shiite and Hazara community have taken place in the province during the past 15 years.
