Nine police officials killed in a suicide bombing in Pak’s Balochistan
At least nine police officials were killed in a suicide bombing that struck Pakistan’s insurgency-hit Balochistan province on Monday. The explosion occurred after a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a police truck in Sibi, a city some 160 km (100 miles) east of Balochistan’s capital Quetta.
No group had immediately claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack but ethnic Baloch guerrillas have been fighting the government for decades, accusing it of exploiting Balochistan’s rich gas and mineral resources.
In April last year, a burqa-clad Baloch woman suicide bomber killed four people, including three Chinese nationals (tutors), in an attack on a minibus carrying staff from China-built Confucius Institute at Karachi University.
The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) had claimed responsibility for the attack, the first major one that year against nationals of all-weather ally China working in Pakistan. BLA, banned in Pakistan for “terror activities”, said it was their first suicide attack by a woman assailant.
