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Gunmen kill at least 31 people in 2 separate attacks in restive southwestern Pakistan
Story by Abdul Sattar and Munir Ahmed
Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 31 people in two separate attacks on Monday, with reports of other shootings and unrest across the same province, police and officials said.
Twenty-three people were fatally shot after being identified and taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistanprovince, senior police official Ayub Achakzai said. The attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing the scene.
In a separate attack, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passersby, in Qalat district also in Baluchistan, authorities said.
Insurgents blew up a railway track in Bolan, attacked a police station in Mastung and attacked and burned vehicles in Gwadar, all districts in Baluchistan. No casualties were reported in those attacks.
Baluchistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in Pakistan, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, mainly on security forces. The separatists have been demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. Although Pakistani authorities say they have quelled the insurgency, violence in Baluchistan has persisted.
Pakistan Shooting
© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The attack in Musakhail came hours after the outlawed Baluch Liberation Army separatist group warned people to stay away from highways, as they launched attacks on security forces in various parts of the province. But there there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest killings.
Separatists often ask people for their ID cards, and then abduct or kill those who are from outside the province. Many recent victims have come from neighboring Punjab province.
Uzma Bukhari, a spokesperson for the Punjab provincial government, denounced the latest killings on Monday, saying the “attacks are a matter of grave concern” and urging the Baluchistan provincial government to “step up efforts to eliminate BLA terrorists.”
Authorities in Baluchistan said they responded to the latest attacks on Monday and that they would provide details on their operations later in the day. Local media said at least 12 insurgents were killed by security forces in various parts of the province in the past 24 hours.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in separate statements called the attack in Musakhail “barbaric” and vowed that those who were behind it would not escape justice.
Later, Naqvi also condemned the killings in Qalat
In May, gunmen fatally shot seven barbers in Gwadar, a port city in Baluchistan.
In April, separatists killed nine people after abducting them from a bus on a highway in Baluchistan, and the attackers also killed two people and wounded six in another car they forced to stop. BLA claimed responsibility for those attacks at the time.
Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the latest killings of non-Baluch people are an attempt by separatists to harm the province economically.
Ali told The Associated Press that most such attacks are carried out with the aim to economically weaken Baluchistan, noting that “the weakening of Baluchistan means the weakening of Pakistan.”
He said insurgent attacks could hamper development work being done in the province.
Separatists in Baluchistan have often killed workers and others from the country’s eastern Punjab region as part of a campaign to force them to leave the province, which for years has experienced a low-level insurgency.
Most such previous killings have been blamed on the outlawed group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. Islamic militants also have a presence in the province.
Ahmed reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Asim Tanveer contributed to this story from Multan, Pakistan.
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By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli military strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, as Israeli forces deepened their incursion into Beit Hanoun town in the north, forcing most remaining residents to leave.
Residents said Israeli forces besieged shelters housing displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp in the north from Gaza City.
Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said.
Israel’s campaign in the north of Gaza, and the evacuation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the area, has fueled claims from Palestinians that it is clearing the area for use as a buffer zone and potentially for a return of Jewish settlers.
A Palestinian man inspects the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip November 13, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
© Thomson Reuters
“The scenes of the 1948 catastrophe are being repeated. Israel is repeating its massacres, displacement and destruction,” said Saed, 48, a resident of Beit Lahiya, who arrived in Gaza City on Wednesday.
“North Gaza is being turned into a large buffer zone, Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing under the sight and hearing of the impotent world,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
Saed was referring to the 1948 Middle East Arab-Israeli war which gave birth to the state of Israel and saw the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home towns and villages in what is now Israel.
NO PLANS FOR SETTLERS’ RETURN
The Israeli military has denied any such intention, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he does not want to reverse the 2005 withdrawal of settlers from Gaza. Hardliners in his government have talked openly about going back.
A Palestinian firefighter works to extinguish fire following an Israeli strike on tents of displaced people, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip November 12, 2024. REUTERS/Ahmed Mustafa
© Thomson Reuters
It said forces have killed hundreds of Hamas militants in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun during its new military offensive, which began more than a month ago. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad armed wing claimed killing several Israeli soldiers during ambushes and anti-tank rocket fire.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip November 13, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
© Thomson Reuters
On Tuesday, the United States stressed at the United Nations that “there must be no forcible displacement, nor policy of starvation in Gaza” by Israel, warning such policies would have grave implications under U.S. and international law.
Medics said five people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a group of people outside Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, while five others were killed in two separate strikes in Nuseirat in central Gaza Strip where the army began a limited raid two days ago.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, one man was killed and several others were wounded in an Israeli airstrike, while three Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli airstrikes in Shejaia suburb of Gaza City, medics added.
Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel last October, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 43,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza over the past year, Palestinian health officials say, and Gaza has been reduced to a wasteland of wrecked buildings and piles of rubble, where more than 2 million Gazans are seeking shelter in makeshift tents and facing shortages of food and medicines.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip November 13, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed
© Thomson Reuters
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