Captain martyred, two soldiers injured in Balochistan attack: ISPR

QUETTA: A captain was martyred and two soldiers were injured in a roadside explosion in Balochistan on Sunday, the Inter-Services Public Relations said.

An army vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device in the remote Gichik town, said a statement by the military’s media wing.

The injured soldiers were shifted to a medical facility in Khuzdar, the statement added.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Minister for Interior Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed condemned the attack and expressed “sadness” on receiving the news. “Terrorists cannot dim our courage with cowardly attacks. We are fighting them with full force and will defeat them,” he said.

اللہ تعالی شہید کیپٹن کاشف کے درجات میں مزید بلندی عطا فرمائے۔

دہشت گرد بزدلانہ کاروائیوں سے ہماری فورسز کے حوصلے پست نہیں کرسکتے۔

دہشتگردوں کا پوری قوت کے ساتھ مقابلہ کررہے ہیں۔ان کو شکست فاش دینگے۔ 2/2

— Sheikh Rashid Ahmed (@ShkhRasheed) August 22, 2021

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry also condemned the incident and said he was “sad to learn about the martyrdom” of the young military man in the terrorist incident, APP reported.

“Such cowardly acts could not dampen the spirits of the nation,” he asserted.

The blast came days after a suicide attack on a convoy of Chinese workers in Gwadar, which killed two children playing nearby and wounded a Chinese national.

Militants, which Islamabad says have backing from New Delhi, have also targeted the Chinese consulate and Pakistan Stock Exchange buildings in Karachi in the past.

Balochistan is a key route to the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.

The $64 billion megaproject aims to connect China’s strategic northwestern Xinxiang province to the Gwadar seaport through a network of roads, railways and pipelines to transport cargo, oil, and gas.

TERRORIST KILLED:

In a related development, the security forces killed a terrorist while conducting an intelligence-based operation on the purported presence of militants in the Boya town of North Waziristan district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.