Pakistan forces search for attackers after six soldiers killed, 17 civilians wounded

Pakistani forces on Monday expanded their search for the perpetrators behind multiple attacks that killed six troops and wounded 17 civilians in a restive southwestern province the previous day.

The top government official in the southwestern Baluchistan province, Abdul Aziz Uqaili, said there were a total of nine attacks in the province on Sunday.

No civilians were killed in the attacks, he tweeted. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the violence in Baluchistan.

Earlier, the military in a statement said five soldiers, including an army captain, were killed when a roadside bomb exploded near a security forces' vehicle during a clearance operation in Kahan, a remote area in Baluchistan bordering Afghanistan.

No militant group has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The sixth soldier was killed in a shootout with the Pakistani Taliban in the Sambaza area of Zhob district, according to Azfar Mohesar, a senior police official. A militant was also killed in the shootout, he said.

In the provincial capital of Quetta, 12 people were wounded when assailants threw a hand grenade in a bazaar near a residential area, Mohesar added.

Elsewhere in Baluchistan, five people were wounded in attacks in the towns of Kalat, Khuzdar and Hub.

The Pakistani Taliban – known also as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – have stepped up attacks across Pakistan since November, when they unilaterally ended a ceasefire after accusing the military of violating the truce.

Pakistan's Taliban said on Monday they have called off a ceasefire agreed with the government in June.https://t.co/gc4aiq91wg

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) November 29, 2022

The militant group is an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan last year as US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout.

The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.

Also, unrelated to TTP, separatists in Baluchistan have long waged a low-level insurgency seeking independence from the central Pakistani government in Islamabad.