A spokesman for Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps says troops have killed 13 members of a militant group that claimed responsibility for a weekend attack on a dam project in south western Baluchistan province that killed 20 construction workers.
Abdul Wasay said on Monday that the troops carried out an operation in the mountains of Turbat district, where the dam construction is underway, searching for “terrorists who massacred” the workers on Saturday.
Wasay says a commander of the separatist Baluchistan Liberation Front was among those killed. The troops suffered no casualties.
BLF, which claimed responsibility for the attack later on Saturday, is among several nationalist and separatist groups behind a years-long, low-level insurgency in Baluchistan demanding a greater share of gas and mineral revenue for the Baluch minority and complete autonomy from Islamabad.
