Attack on CPEC’s Gwadar port foiled by Pakistan, killing seven terrorists

ISLAMABAD: On Wednesday, gun-wielding separatists from Balochistan assaulted Pakistan’s strategically important Gwadar Port Authority Complex, which is vital to the multibillion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. According to government sources, security personnel shot and killed seven of the attackers.

According to Saeed Ahmed Umrani, the region’s commissioner, the militants overran the complex in the southwest province of Baluchistan, which includes offices of several government ministries, intelligence services, and paramilitary groups.

“Many explosions were carried out by attackers,” he informed the journalists, adding that a gun assault came next. He claimed that in response to the attacks, the army and police were acting. “I’ve been informed that seven assailants have been eliminated,” Umrani said.
During the complicated assault, “several explosions followed by continuous firing” were observed, according to a statement from the UN Department for Safety and Security. The statement went on to say that there were no early reports of injuries and that seven employees from two UN agencies on missions and three UN agencies with a base in Gwadar were “safe and accounted for.”
In a statement, the Majeed Brigade, a suicide squad affiliated with the banned Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the assault and said that it was directed at the complex’s military intelligence offices. The organisation primarily targets Chinese interests in Pakistan and security forces. According to intelligence assessments, it has sanctuaries in places close to the border between Iran and Pakistan.
An important component of China’s multibillion-dollar CPEC, the centrepiece of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative, is the seaport town of Gwadar, which is located on the southwest coast of Pakistan. Baloch separatist parties see a significant portion of the violence as a response to China’s investment intentions in the area to build a road and rail network connecting its Xinjiang province with the Arabian Sea in Balochistan. Baloch nationalists started a campaign for independence from Pakistan after first demanding a portion of the province’s riches.
The Gwadar complex incident came only a week after a deadly terrorist attack on a security checkpoint in the Mir Ali neighbourhood of North Waziristan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The nation is seeing an increase in these attacks, which have claimed the lives of several law enforcement officers and civilians.