Authorities in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province said Friday that at least 11 coal mine workers were killed and six injured when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb.
The early morning incident occurred near a coal mine in the Harnai district of the insurgency-hit province, which is rich in natural resources.
“The terrorists involved in this incident will be brought to justice soon,” an official statement quoted Provincial Chief Minister Sarfaraz Bugti as saying.
In Islamabad, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office said he expressed sorrow over the deaths of miners and said his government “is actively working to eliminate terrorism.”
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing in Balochistan, where ethnic Baloch militants frequently stage insurgent attacks against security forces and workers associated with public and private mining projects.
The Baloch Liberation Army, particularly its suicide bomber unit known as the Majeed Brigade, has claimed responsibility for nearly all recent attacks in Balochistan, resulting in the killings of scores of civilians and security forces.
At least 18 Pakistani paramilitary troops were killed Jan. 31 when BLA militants assaulted their bus in the province’s Kalat district, marking one of the deadliest days for security forces in recent months.
The U.N. Security Council noted in its latest international terror threat assessment report released this week that BLA has been behind “several high-casualty attacks” in Balochistan.
The report quoted two U.N. member states as saying that the “Majeed Brigade maintained connections with TTP, ISIL-K and ETIM/TIP, including collaborating with the latter in its operational bases in Afghanistan.”
TTP stands for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, a globally designated terrorist group that carries out almost daily attacks in Pakistan, particularly in its northwestern districts near or on the Afghan border.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan, or ISIL-K, is the Afghan branch of the transnational Islamic State terrorist network. The East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, is an anti-China militant group operating from sanctuaries in Afghanistan.
Balochistan is on Pakistan’s borders with Iran and Afghanistan and has experienced years of attacks attributed to BLA, TTP, and Islamic State loyalists.
