At least nine police officers were killed and 16 wounded in a suicide attack on a police truck in southwestern Pakistan on Monday, authorities said.
“The suicide bomber was riding a motorcycle and hit the truck from behind,” Abdul Hai Aamir, a local police officer in Dhadar, Kacchi district, where the attack took place, told AFP. Eight of the injured are in critical condition, which could aggravate the death toll, the sources said.
Dhadar is located about 120 km southeast of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. The policemen were returning from a neighboring district, where they had been guarding an agricultural fair, Kacchi district police chief Mehmood Notezai told AFP.
Balochistan, in southwestern Pakistan, is the largest, poorest and most sparsely populated province in the country, bordering Afghanistan and Iran. It has long been the scene of ethnic, sectarian and separatist violence.
The police are regularly targeted by local rebel movements or by the Pakistani Taliban Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement, TTP).
According to the criteria of The Trust Project