AMP Report – May 14, 2019
Terrorist attacks in Balochistan: The Indian Factor
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
The restive Balochistan, the largest province of Pakistan, has witnessed two terrorist attacks within three days.
On Monday (May 13) at least four police personnel were killed and 12 others, including some policemen, wounded in a blast near a mosque in the Satellite Town area of the provincial capital Quetta. The blast took place shortly after a police van arrived at the site to provide security to the people offering taraveeh prayers at the mosque.
“The police vehicle carrying personnel for mosque security was targeted in the blast in which our four personnel of Rapid Response Group (RRG) lost their lives, while the condition of another was stated to be serious,” said Quetta DIG Razzaq Cheema while speaking to Dawn. The banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed responsibility for the motorcycle bomb blast targeting the police vehicle.
On Sunday (May 11), four hotel employees and a Pakistani navy soldier were killed in terrorist attack and gun battle at a luxury hotel in the southern port city of Gwadar. Three attackers were killed and six other people were wounded, officials said.
A regional separatist group claimed responsibility for the attack on Twitter. The Balochistan Liberation Army seeks autonomy for ethnic Baloch tribes in the vast desert province of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran and also touches the Arabian Sea.
"We claim the responsibility of Gawadar attack on PC hotel. The attack is being carried out by our freedom fighters of Majeed Brigade of BLA," BLA tweeted its spokesperson Jeehand Baloch, as saying.
The Indian News Agency ANI said, the attack on Pearl Continental, reminds the deadly terror attack on two iconic five-star hotels in Mumbai -- Oberoi and Taj Mahal hotel -- on November 26, 2008.
Gwadar, on the Balochistan seacoast, is the hub of a multibillion-dollar Chinese infrastructure project in Pakistan and a high-security priority for the government. The attack came several weeks after 14 Pakistani troops were ambushed and killed on a highway through the region. That attack was also claimed by militant separatists.
Army officials said that gunmen stormed the five-star Pearl Continental Hotel late Saturday afternoon in an attempt to take guests hostage. Stopped by a hotel guard, they fled up a staircase while “firing indiscriminately” at hotel workers.
Balochistan has witnessed a substantial increase in terrorist attacks in recent months.
14 killed after disembarking from buses
On April 18, gunmen killed 14 people after forcing them to disembark from buses. The attackers, who numbered around two dozen, were wearing uniforms from the paramilitary Frontier Corps. They stopped buses on the Makran Coastal Highway.
They identified non-Baloch by checking their identity cards and employee cards. They took them to the nearby mountains and shot them dead after tying their hands. Nine employees of the Navy were among the dead.
The Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS), an alliance of armed ethnic Baloch separatist groups, claimed responsibility for the attack in an emailed statement.
“Those who were targeted carried [identification] cards of the Pakistan Navy and Coast Guards, and they were only killed after they were identified,” said Baloch Khan, a BRAS spokesperson.
The Baloch Raji Ajoi Sangar (BRAS), an alliance of three Balochi separatist organizations, including the Baloch Liberation Army, Balochistan Liberation Front and Baloch Republican Guard.
At least three terrorist attacks were reported in March. Four policemen were targeted in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Quetta, while an IED blast targeting a passenger train in Balochistan's Dera Murad Jamali killed four people. At least two people were killed and 11 others injured in a bomb blast in a Panjgur bazaar.
There were two attacks on security forces in February. Four personnel of the Frontier Corps were killed in an attack in Panjgur district when unidentified armed men opened fire on them during a change of shifts at two check posts on Feb 18. In the first attack (Feb 16), two FC soldiers were killed in an attack in the town of Loralai.
On Jan 30, nine people, including three policemen, were killed in a terrorist attack when two suicide bombers blew themselves up on the office premises of the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Zhob Range, Loralai. The gun-and-bomb attack took place when several candidates were taking a written test on the grounds of the DIG’s office for recruitment in the police department.
The Balochistan Liberation Army had claimed responsibility for the attack the Chinese consulate in Karachi last November. "The BLA claims responsibility for this attack. Three of our fighters have raided the consulate," BLA spokesperson Jihand Baloch told Al Jazeera via satellite phone from an undisclosed location while the raid was ongoing.
Baloch said the fighters were members of the Fidayeen Majeed Brigade, a new force raised by the group to carry out suicide attacks against Pakistani security forces and Chinese targets. "The objective of this attack is clear: we will not tolerate any Chinese military expansionist endeavors on Baloch soil," the BLA said in a statement.
New Baloch rebel commander
On February 19, the Indian News Agency ANI, reported Bashir Zaib Baloch, the new head of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) as saying that the situation in Balochistan is much grave than Palestine, Iraq, and in Afghanistan and sought international support in exposing Pakistan.
Bashir Zaib Baloch took charge of BLA after its commander Aslam Baloch was killed in a suicide bombing last December.
In a recorded video message he said: "Today, I say this to the entire world, to India, to the United States of America and the European Union; whether you believe it or not, hear it or not. It has been said before by our friends as well; if the manner in which Baloch genocide is being carried out gets exposed, the problems of Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan will appear insignificant."
The atrocities on Baloch people have increased since Islamabad and Beijing signed the multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), he added.
Bashir Zaib Baloch added that "Pakistan and China, on the pretext of CPEC (China-Pakistan Economic Corridor), Gwadar Port, and Saindak project have unleashed their satanic designs in the region. Balochs are resisting them and will continue to do so till the end of their life as it is a matter of their identity. Still, they (Pakistan and China) have been aggressively plundering our resources. They have been trying hard to declare the unsuccessful project of CPEC as a game changer. Pakistan and China have been systematically killing Balochs.
The Indian’ Factor
For decades, Pakistan has accused India of meddling Balochistan and its separatist insurgency.
Tellingly, in February 2014, just three months before he was appointed India’s national security advisor, Ajit Doval tacitly acknowledged this. “You do one more Mumbai, you lose Balochistan,” he said. Doval was referring to Pakistan’s alleged involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed over 172 people and injured over 300.
Not surprisingly, in his address to the nation on August 15, 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narender Modi said, “Today, I want to especially honor and thank some people from the ramparts of the Red Fort. For the past few days, the people of Balochistan, people of Gilgit, people of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the way their citizens have heartily thanked me, the way they have acknowledged me, the goodwill they have shown towards me, people settled far across, the land which I have not seen, people I have not met ever….”
In another gathering in August 2016, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said : The time has come when Pakistan shall have to answer to the world for the atrocities committed by it against people in Baluchistan."
The separatist Balochistan Republican Party (BRP) leader Brahamdagh Bugti, who has applied for political asylum in India, thanked Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for raising the issue of the situation in Balochistan in the latter's Independence Day speech.
In July 2008, Brahamdagh Bugti, grandson of slain nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, was quoted by the United News of India as saying that he would accept any help from India, Afghanistan and Iran to defend Baluchistan.
In a telephone interview from an undisclosed location, Brahamdagh told the UNI that the government was conducting military operations to plunder resources of the province as well as to keep people of Baluchistan backward and said they would resist those who come to loot their resources in the name of development.
''Punjab and Pakistan do not have right over our gas resources. If anyone wants to take it by force, then we will resist it,'' he said.
Brahamdagh’s grandfather, Nawab Akbar Bugti, former chief minister and governor of Baluchistan, was killed in a military operation in August 2006.
Indian spy Kulbhushan Sudhir Yadav arrested from Balochistan
Not surprisingly, in March 2016 Kulbhushan Sudhir Yadav, an Indian intelligence officer, was arrested from a compound in Mashkel, in Balochistan, in an area not far from Iranian border.
Kulbhashan told his interrogators that Indian intelligence agency RAW’s strategy included political, financial, technical and logistical support to Baloch insurgents to beef up their sabotage capacities to paralyze Pakistani law enforcement agencies, to disrupt gas installations, electricity supplies, road transport, construction works and to play up with sectarian fault lines.
He also disclosed how RAW encouraged, planned and facilitated attacks on Shia pilgrims to Iran – and that was to be further beefed up.
Tellingly, on April 12, 2019 at least 20 people were killed and 48 injured in a blast believed to be targeting members of the Hazara Shia community in Quetta's Hazarganji market.
The attack claimed the lives of nine Hazara and one Frontier Corps (FC) soldier who was deputed for the community's security. The 10 others who lost their lives included shopkeepers, businessmen and citizens working or residing in the area.
With around 46 per cent of the country's total area, Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province, but has the smallest population, representing around five per cent of the country's total. While the Baloch are in the majority, Pashtuns make up around 40 per cent of the population, with the Hazara community being the third-largest ethnic group.
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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