Quetta, Pakistan – Bombings and shootings killed at least nine people in Pakistan’s restive southwestern Baluchistan region Sunday, while Islamic militants gunned down a cleric near the Afghan border on suspicion that he was spying for the U.S. and Britain.
Pakistan has been gripped by increased violence in recent months as Pakistani military forces crack down on tribesmen in Baluchistan who want increased royalties from natural resources extracted there and in North and South Waziristan, where support for remnants of the former Taliban government in Afghanistan runs high.
A bomb planted in a shopping bag killed two police officers outside a security post in Dhadar, a small town about 60 miles southeast of the Baluchistan capital of Quetta, said Mahmood Marri, a senior government administrator in the area.
Gunmen opened fire immediately after the blast, killing four more police officers who were at the scene and wounding four others, said Maj. Mohammed Anjum, an official with the Levies, a police force that looks after security in Baluchistan’s tribal areas.
The coordinated attacks came hours after another bomb ripped through a state-run dairy in the Baluchistan town of Kohlu, killing two farm workers and the 7- year-old son of one of the workers. Nine others were wounded, said local government official Mohammed Akbar.
Ethnic Baluch tribesmen are suspected in a spate of attacks on government installations and security forces in recent months in a campaign to press demands for independence and increased royalties for resources extracted in their territories.
