Suspected suicide attack kills at least nine police officers in Pakistan
Police say that at least 9 police officers were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province on Monday, March 6th, police have said, the latest in recent attacks against security personnel in the country.
Mehmood NOTEZAI, senior superintendent of Kachhi Police, said that a vehicle carrying officers was attacked in the Sibi district. He stated that preliminary evidence suggested it was a suicide attack and added that an investigation was ongoing.
As of press time, no group claimed responsibility for the attack.
Three of the wounded officers are still in critical condition, and they are currently receiving treatment, Sibi’s Combined Military Hospital Administration said.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area, has experienced decades-long insurgency by separatists who demand independence from the country, blaming the state’s monopoly and exploitation of the region’s mineral resources.
The bombing on Monday, March 6, was the third major attack on Pakistani security personnel in just three months.
At least four people were killed and 14 others injured in February after militants stormed the police headquarters in the southern city of Karachi. Pakistan’s Taliban, known as Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attack, according to spokesman Mohammad Khorasani.
In January, at least 100 people mostly police officials – died after a suicide bomb ripped through a mosque in the northwestern city of Peshawar, marking one of the deadliest attacks in the country in years.
TTP officials initially claimed the blast was “revenge” for the death of a TTP militant last year before the militant group’s main spokesperson later denied the group was involved in the attack.
