Quetta: Suspected militants hurled hand grenades at a house and a store selling Pakistani national flags in the restive southwestern Baluchistan province, killing three people and wounding six others ahead of Pakistan's 77th independence day. The separatist Baluch Liberation Army group claimed responsibility for the attacks that took place on Tuesday in the provincial capital of Quetta, days after the group asked shop owners not to sell the flags. It also warned people not to celebrate the holiday on Wednesday, marking the Aug 14, 1947 date of Pakistan's independence from British colonial rule.
VIDEO: Explosion in Quetta’s Liaquat Bazaar
Army chief vowed to defeat militancy
Wasim Baig, a spokesman at a government hospital, said the facility had received six injured people and three bodies following the attacks. Pakistan's army chief General Asim Munir vowed to defeat militancy in a televised speech at an event that took place at a military academy in the country's northeast on the eve of Independence Day. Munir sought cooperation from neighbouring Afghanistan against the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group that operates from Afghan soil and that has stepped up attacks across the border in the northwest.
The group also operates in southwestern Baluchistan alongside the long-running insurgency in that region, which also shares a border with Afghanistan. In the latest violence in the northwest, a group of militants killed four security forces in South Waziristan, a district in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the military said. In a statement, it said troops returned fire, killing six insurgents.
Pakistan's security forces put on high alert ahead of I-Day
Earlier the security agencies said forces were put on high alert nationwide for the Independence Day celebrations on Wednesday after separatist groups in the restive Balochistan province threatened to disrupt the celebrations with terror attacks. The government has declared a public holiday on August 14 but separatist groups in Balochistan have threatened to disrupt the celebrations and commemorative events on the day.
On Tuesday, a blast in the crowded Liaquat Bazar area of Quetta killed one person and left at least six injured. Two days ago, Deputy Commissioner of Panjgur Zakir Baloch was killed in a terrorist attack in the Kadkucha area of Mastung. According to security sources, the overall threat from not only separatist groups but also Islamist militant groups, chiefly the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Islamic State Khorasan (IS-K) remains high.
(With inputs from agency)
ALSO READ: Pakistan: 36 killed, 162 injured in armed clashes between two tribes in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Kurram
