Militant group attacked paramilitary convoy in Pakistan, 18 killed

A gun and rocket strike targeting a Pakistani paramilitary escort on Thursday killed seven soldiers and seven private security guards in southwestern Pakistan, officials stated.

The security force was conducting protection of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) on a coastal highway going to the southern city of Karachi from the port town of Gawadar, established in the restive Balochistan region.

The Pakistani army's public relations division told the OGDCL personnel managed to escape the attack cautiously, but 14 security men had been killed in the event.

The area has been sealed off, and a research procedure for the attackers had been started, the military said in a declaration.

Mineral-rich Balochistan has seen a decades-long insurgency by separatists who want the region to secede from Pakistan because of what they term to be source exploitation in the region.

An umbrella group of Baloch militant groups declared accountability for the attack in a social media post, but the integrity of the account could not be independently confirmed by Reuters.

It was the second significant strike in Pakistan in 24 hours.

Six soldiers, including one officer, were shot in a separate strike in the previous tribal regions in the northwest of the nation late Wednesday.

Two blasts targeted army patrols along the Afghan frontier near Razmak, North Wazirstan, the military’s public relations division stated.

The attack was announced by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - an umbrella group of Islamist militants fighting against the Pakistani state and its security forces.

The group separated and split into factions following services in 2014 by Pakistan’s military in the former tribal areas, which had long been a hotbed for militants that struck targets in Pakistan as well as across the border in Afghanistan.

However, two splinter groups joined the TTP this year, and aggression against security forces have seen a signed raise.

At least 49 Pakistani army men have been killed in the province since March, according to a Reuters tally of official numbers.