Gunmen kill 14 after kidnapping them from buses in southwestern Pakistan
Heavily-armed assailants have shot dead at least 14 people after pulling them from several passenger buses in a remote area of Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, officials say.
The attack took place on the Makran coastal highway between Karachi and the Gwadar port in the troubled region early Thursday morning, they said.
Ziaullah Langove, home minister for Balochistan, said the passengers were killed after the attackers checked their identity cards and forced them out on the highway.
"Terrorists offloaded 14 persons from different buses after checking their NICs. They took them and killed them," Langove said, referring to Pakistani national identity cards.
The dead passengers had their legs and hands tied and were found close to the town of Ormara, about halfway between Karachi and Gwadar, he added.
Hours after the ambush, the little-known separatist group Baloch Raji Aajoi Sangar claimed responsibility for the latest assault.
Its spokesman, Baluch Khan, denied any civilian passengers had been killed and claimed that the group had only targeted coast guard and navy service members.
"Those who were targeted carried cards of the Pakistan Navy and Coast Guards, and they were only killed after they were identified," the statement read.
The Pakistani Navy said its sailors and officers who were traveling to work were among the slain men.
The attack drew nationwide condemnation and Prime Minister Imran Khan called it "an act of terror." The premier later ordered authorities "to make every possible effort to identify and to bring the perpetrators of the barbaric act to justice."
The latest attack came less than a week after a bomb blast claimed by a Takfiri terrorist group in the provincial capital of Quetta killed 20 people, mostly Hazara Shia Muslims.
Balochistan has witnessed a series of bomb and gun attacks in the past several years, mostly blamed on Pakistan's Takfiri militants and a number of separatist groups.
Despite frequent offensives by the Pakistani Army, acts of terror by militant outfits continue to target security forces as well as civilians.
Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Pakistan entered an alliance with the US in Washington’s so-called war on terror. Thousands more have been displaced by the wave of violence and militancy sweeping the country.
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