Insurgents killed 18 police officers who had been abducted during an earlier attack and 11 soldiers in a separate assault in Pakistan’s restive southwestern region, the military said. The violence marks another escalation in a region where insurgent groups have intensified attacks on security forces and civilians.
The latest incidents have raised the death toll to 42 people, most of them soldiers and police officers, according to military spokesperson Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry.
At a televised news conference, Chaudhry said security forces had also killed 54 insurgents in multiple operations carried out during the same period.
He said the 18 police officers had been held captive after dozens of militants attacked a police post in Ziarat district in Balochistan, killing nine other police officers.
According to Chaudhry, the attackers belonged to what the Pakistani government refers to as Fitna al-Khawarij, a term it uses for the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army.
