Separatist group claims multiple attacks that killed over 40 people in southwestern Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A separatist group claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in southwestern Pakistan that killed more than 40 people but insisted it did not harm civilians, as authorities on Tuesday sent the bodies of 23 victims to their home districts for burial.

The outlawed Baluchistan Liberation Army group warned in a statement overnight into Tuesday of more attacks, saying that 800 of its well-trained fighters took part in the first phase of the shooting and bombing attacks that began late Sunday and ended on Monday.

It warned the second phase of the attacks would be “even more intense and widespread.”

Twenty-three people and 14 security officials were among the dozens killed by insurgents in multiple attacks in the restive southwest, the highest one-day death toll in recent violence in the area.

The attacks drew nationwide condemnation.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday there would be no peace talks with insurgents who took up arms against the state, killed innocent people and attacked security forces in Baluchistan.

He said the latest attacks in Baluchistan seek to harm Chinese-funded development projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which includes building and improving roads and rail systems to link western China’s Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s southwestern Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea.

In recent years, BLA and other militants have also attacked Chinese nationals working on CPEC projects.

Shafique Ullah, a local administration official, said 14 people from the eastern Punjab province and nine Baluch were among the 23 people killed by BLA after they were offloaded from their vehicles on a highway in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan early Sunday.

The bodies were sent to their home districts on Monday, he said.

Funerals for the 14 security officials killed in the assaults were held in Baluchistan overnight.

The government has vowed to punish the attackers and their facilitators.

BLA has targeted security forces for years in small-scale attacks, but the latest violence indicated it was now much more organized.

Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Baluchistan, told reporters in Quetta on Monday that operations against the insurgents were still underway, adding that “those who killed our innocent civilians and security with be dealt with a full force.”

Baluchistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in Pakistan, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, mainly on security forces. The separatists have been demanding independence from the central government.

Although Pakistan says it quelled the insurgency, violence has persisted in Baluchistan.