Islamabad: At least three Frontier Corps soldiers were killed on Friday in firing by militants in the capital of Pakistan’s restive Balochistan, according to local media reports.
The soldiers from the Frontier Corps were hit in the head while patrolling on foot in Sabzal, a neighbourhood in west Quetta.
“Two of them died on the spot while the third succumbed to his injuries in hospital,” Khan Wasay, a spokesman for the Frontier Corps, said.
Wasay said the motive for the attack was unclear.
The incident took place in the jurisdiction of Kharotabad police station in the provincial capital.
Chief Minister Balochistan Nawab Sanaullah Khan Zehri strongly condemned the attack.
Attacks on security forces by militants have taken place from time to time in Balochistan, a mineral-rich province long plagued by a low-scale separatist insurgency involving ethnic Baloch militants.
The province also has a history of sectarian violence, targeting the regions minority Hazara community.
In Islamabad, National Security Adviser Lt Gen (retired) Nasser Janjua on Friday chaired a meeting to review the implementation of National Action Plan (NAP) introduced last year to curb militancy.
The meeting decided that provincial committees will be formed in all four provinces, Pakistan-administered Kashmir and northern Gilgit-Baltistan region to oversee the implementation of National Action Plan.
Abdul Razzaq Cheema, a senior police official, in Quetta confirmed the attack and casualties.
No group has yet claimed responsibility but Baloch separatists demanding greater autonomy have been waging an insurgency for years, and the province is also riven by sectarian strife and Islamist violence.
Separately, four people including a soldier from the Frontier Corps were wounded on Friday after intercepting a suicide bomber on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the northwestern Kurram tribal district.
Security officials said the bomber was trying to cross into Pakistan at the Kharlachi Gate, but “his attempt to create a big disaster was successfully foiled”.
