News Analysis |
A bomb blast on Sunday killed three paramilitary soldiers and wounded four others in Pakistan’s troubled southwest, officials said. The incident happened in Margat area on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas-rich Balochistan province.
“An improvised explosive device planted along the road went off as a vehicle of Frontier Corps (FC) passed by, killing three soldiers and wounding four others,” an FC spokesman told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Balochistan is regularly hit by homegrown militancy and sectarian violence. Violence in Pakistan has however dropped significantly since the country’s deadliest-ever militant attack, an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children.
Terrorist outfits such as BLA, BRA, ISIS-K and LeJ etc have been propped up to create hurdles in the realization of this project.
Pakistan’s military intensified operations against militants in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan in the wake of that attack, leading to dramatic security improvements.
Balochistan is a resource rich province of Pakistan. Its importance has increased considerably over the past few years after the launching of the mega CPEC project. This is a rail-road project being hurled with China’s finances which is eyeing to by-pass the hazardous Strait of Hormuz.
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CPEC is projected to push Pakistan onto the world stage as a strong economic power. However, the enemies of Pakistan view this as a strategic threat and have been financing the beleaguered Baloch insurgency.
The incident happened in Margat area on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas-rich Balochistan province.
Terrorist outfits such as BLA, BRA, ISIS-K and LeJ etc have been propped up to create hurdles in the realization of this project. The continuation of the terrorist attacks in Balochistan is a proof of these assertions.
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Analysts opine that Pakistan must mainstream the downtrodden masses and ensure that every section of the society benefits from the CPEC so that sense of deprivation is curbed. The alienation which these masses feel makes them an easy target of terrorist brain-washing. Also, an effective counter-terrorism strategy is required to end the bloodshed in the country.