Pakistan’s military said yesterday it had concluded a week-long operation against separatists in Balochistan who stormed more than a dozen locations, taking hostages, setting off explosives and waging gun battles with security forces.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, was brought to a virtual standstill last Saturday when the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) launched a co-ordinated sunrise attack.
Its fighters entered schools, banks, markets and security installations across the region in one of their largest ever operations.
Images from the provincial capital Quetta and other areas showed blown-out buildings, some razed to the ground, and blackened bricks and concrete strewn across the streets.
The military said it “successfully concluded” its Radd Al-Fitna 1 (countering chaos) operation, thwarted separatist attacks, broke up sleeper cells and seized weapons.
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