Gunmen kill 19 bus passengers in Pakistan attack

Islamabad – Gunmen killed at least 19
passengers they had forced off buses
travelling from the western Pakistani
city of Quetta to Karachi on the southern
coast, said the home minister for the
restive province of Baluchistan, where
the attack took place.
The assault occurred late on Friday in
the town of Mastung, around 40 km
south of Quetta.
“The armed men were wearing the
uniforms of the security forces,”
Sarfaraz Bugti told Reuters. The bodies
of 19 passengers had been found so far,
he said.
Security officials said around 25
passengers were taken off two buses,
and an operation began to find them.
The bodies were discovered in nearby
hills, the officials said.
The circumstances of their deaths could
not immediately be established, and the
motives of the assailants was unclear.
Separatists have been fighting a low-
intensity insurgency in Baluchistan, of
which Quetta is the capital, for decades.
They are demanding an end to what they
see as the exploitation of their resources
by people from other parts of Pakistan.
Islamist militants also regularly attack
civilian and military targets, and earlier
this month at least 43 commuters were
killed on a bus in Karachi by a group
that has declared allegiance to Islamic
State.
All of the victims in that attack were
Ismailis from Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite
community, but one security official said
the Mastung incident was unlikely to
have been a sectarian attack.
As well as the 19 killed, one person was
injured and five more people rescued
unharmed.