Armed men abducted and killed nine bus passengers in Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Balochistan, government officials said Friday, in one of the deadliest recent attacks in the region.
The victims were taken from multiple buses late Thursday evening and later found dead in the nearby mountains with gunshot wounds, according to provincial officials.
“There were multiple buses stopped, and nine passengers were forcibly removed,” said Shahid Rind, a spokesman for the Balochistan provincial government. “Their bodies were discovered overnight.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the killings. However, officials said the attack bore the hallmarks of previous assaults by ethnic Baloch separatist militants, who have targeted civilians from Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province in the past.
The region, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has long been the site of a simmering insurgency led by Baloch separatist groups, including the Baloch Liberation Army. The militants accuse the Pakistani government of exploiting Balochistan’s mineral resources while denying the region political autonomy and development funds.
The attack follows a pattern seen in previous years, in which travelers have been pulled from buses, identified by province or ethnicity, and executed. Security forces have been battling the insurgency for nearly two decades, but violence has persisted.
The Pakistani military has yet to comment publicly on the incident. An investigation is underway, and security patrols have reportedly been intensified in the area.
