At least 145 people have been killed in multiple attacks in southwestern Pakistan

Pakistani police and soldiers have killed more than 100 “Indian-backed terrorists” in counter-terrorism operations in the southwestern province of Balochistan in the past 40 hours, government officials said Sunday, a day after a combined suicide and gun attack killed 33 people, most of them civilians.

The raids, which began on Saturday in several areas of Balochistan, left 18 civilians, including five women and three children, and 15 security guards dead, authorities said.

Sarfraz Bugti, the province’s chief minister, told reporters in Quetta that the army and police responded quickly, killing 145 members of “Fitna al-Hindustan,” the government’s term for the Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, which is allegedly backed by Indians. He said the number of soldiers killed in the last two days is the highest in decades.

“The bodies of these 145 terrorists who were killed are in our hands, and some of them are of Afghan origin,” he said. Bugti said “terrorists supported by Indians” wanted to kidnap but failed to reach the city center.

He spoke to government official Hamza Shafqat, who often oversees similar campaigns against rebels in the province, and praised the army, police and militia for repelling the attack.

The military attack erupted on Saturday in a resource-rich region where Pakistan is seeking to attract foreign investment in mining and minerals. In September 2025, the US steel company signed a $500 million investment deal with Pakistan, a month after the US State Department designated the BLA and its armed wing as a foreign terrorist organization.

Residents described the incidents of panic after the bomb blast that killed a number of policemen on Saturday.

“It was the scariest day in the history of Quetta,” said Khan Muhammad, a local resident. “Armed men were openly roaming the streets before the security forces arrived.”

Bugti has repeatedly accused India and Afghanistan of supporting the insurgents and said that senior BLA leaders, who they claim are responsible for the recent attacks in Balochistan, are operating in Afghan territory. Both Kabul and New Delhi deny the allegations.

He said on Sunday that the Taliban of Afghanistan had promised under the 2020 Doha agreement that it would not allow Afghan soil to be used as a base to attack other countries, but “unfortunately, Afghan soil is still being used against Pakistan.”

Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have continued since early October when Pakistan carried out airstrikes on what it described as Pakistani Taliban hideouts inside Afghanistan, killing dozens of suspected insurgents.

Bugti said terrorists raided the home of a Baloch worker in Gwadar and killed five women and three children. He condemned the killings. He said the attackers had planned to kidnap the people who were kidnapped after raiding the government offices in the Quetta area but they failed. “We knew their plans, and our forces were prepared,” he said.

The BLA is banned in Pakistan and has carried out several attacks in recent years, often targeting security forces, Chinese interests and infrastructure projects.

Authorities say the group operated with the support of the Pakistani Taliban, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The TTP, a separate group, is allied with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which returned to power in August 2021.

Balochistan has long been plagued by a separatist insurgency among the Baloch who want independence or independence from the central government of Pakistan. The BLA regularly targets Pakistani troops and has also attacked civilians, including Chinese, among the thousands working on various jobs in the province.