At least five members of Pakistan's paramilitary corps have been killed in two separate attacks in the restive province of Balochistan, officials said.
One member of the Frontier Corps (FC) was killed and two injured in a bomb attack in the provincial capital of Quetta, a security official requesting anonymity told Radio Mashaal late on February 18.
The improvised explosive device was placed in a motorcycle parked on the side of the road in the western bypass area and detonated by remote control when the security forces’ vehicle passed during a night patrol, he said.
Earlier, four Frontier Corps soldiers were killed in a militant attack at a checkpoint in the Kahan area of Kohlu district, the Dawn newspaper reported.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Balochistan is the scene of an ethnic Baloch separatist insurgency and a brutal state crackdown that has killed thousands of people since 2004.
Activists claim Pakistan’s powerful military has committed widespread abuses in Balochistan, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings of political activists and suspected separatists, arbitrary arrests, and torture.
Pakistan has long blamed India for backing Baloch separatists. The province is home to a sizable Pashtun community.