Gunmen kill 14 passengers on bus in southwestern Pakistan

Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack in restive Baluchistan province, calling it “an act of terror.” (File Photo: Imran Khan (official)/Facebook)

QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen ambushed a bus and killed 14 passengers after going through their ID cards and forcing them out on a highway in a remote area of southwestern Pakistan before dawn Thursday, officials said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the killings. Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack in restive Baluchistan province, calling it “an act of terror.”

Separatists in Baluchistan frequently target Pakistani security forces and also people from neighbouring Punjab province. Punjabis, a different ethnic group from the Baluch, tend to dominate the ranks of the military units stationed in Baluchistan that the separatists are fighting.

The attack took place as the bus was travelling on the Makran coastal highway between the port city of Karachi and the Gwadar port in the southwest, local official Jehangir Dashti told The Associated Press. He said it was unclear who was behind the killings.

Dashti said the passengers targeted in the attack were killed after the assailants checked their identity cards but he could not confirm if all the slain were Punjabis. Security personnel also frequently use buses to travel to their jobs in Gwadar, a port built through investments and help from China.

“Dozens of gunmen” were involved in the attack and fled the scene afterward, he said.

“In this tragic incident, 14 passengers were forced off the bus, they were lined up in a nearby open area and killed by the terrorists,” Dashti said.

Security forces from the nearby town of Buzi Top were dispatched and had reached the area, about 600 kilometres (375 miles) from the provincial capital, Quetta, he added.

In his statement, Prime Minister Khan ordered authorities “to make every possible effort to identify and to bring the perpetrators of the barbaric act to justice.”

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry said Pakistan had rendered great sacrifices in the war on terror, which has not ended yet.

Separatists have for years waged a low-level insurgency in oil-rich Baluchistan, complaining of discrimination and demanding a fairer share of the province’s resources and wealth.

Other militant groups also operate in Baluchistan. Last Friday, a suicide bomber targeted an open-air market in Quetta, killing 20 people in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.