Pakistan’s prime minister approves military operation against separatists following increase in violence in the southwest

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday approved a long-awaited “comprehensive military operation” against separatist groups in the restive southwest, more than a week after a banned group killed 26 people in a suicide bombing at a train station, officials said. .

The announcement through Shebaz Sharif The launch of the operation “against terrorist organizations” operating in Balochistan came after a meeting of the government’s security committee in Islamabad, the capital. On November 9, a suicide bomber from the banned group Baloch Liberation Army blew himself up at a train station in Quetta, killing 26 people, most of them soldiers.

In a statement, Sharif’s office said the BLA and other groups would be targeted, but did not say when the operation would begin. The agency accused the groups of “targeting innocent citizens and foreigners to undermine Pakistan’s economic progress by creating insecurity at the behest of hostile external powers.”

In recent months, Balochistan and the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have witnessed a surge in militant violence, much of which has been blamed on the banned BLA and TTP groups. The train station attack in Quetta was the deadliest since August, when separatists killed more than 50 people in multiple coordinated attacks on passenger buses, police and security forces across Balochistan.

Oil and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but least populated province. It is a hub for the country’s ethnic population Baloch minority whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.

The BLA mainly targets security forces and foreigners, especially Chinese nationals, who are in Pakistan as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar operation. Belt and Road Initiative. The BLA wants all Chinese-funded projects to be halted and Chinese workers to leave Pakistan to prevent further attacks.

Also Tuesday, a suicide car bomber targeted a security post in Bannu, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to Irfan Kahn, a local police official. Kahn said gunshots were heard and ambulances arrived at the scene of the attack. He gave no further details and it was not immediately clear how many people were killed or injured in the attack.

The attack came a day after Pakistani security forces raided a militant hideout in the northwestern Tirah district, sparking a gun battle that killed at least 10 insurgents and wounded several others.

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Associated Press writer Riaz Khan contributed to this story from Peshawar, Pakistan.