Gunmen have stormed a tribal police post in southwestern Pakistan, killing six police officers and wounding three, authorities say.
The attack took place in Wadh area of Baluchistan province's Khuzdar district, where insurgents have launched previous attacks, said Baroz Khan, a senior government official.
Officers manning the post returned fire and pushed the gunmen back toward nearby mountains, Khan said. Reinforcements from the paramilitary Frontier Corps later reached the post, some 300 kilometres south of Quetta, the provincial capital, he said.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but suspicion immediately fell on Baluch nationalist groups who have claimed responsibility for such attacks in the past.
For over a decade, Baluchistan has been the scene of a low-intensity insurgency by some nationalist groups demanding autonomy or a greater share from mineral and gas resources being extracted from the impoverished province. It is also believed to be home to many Afghan Taliban members.
Residents say a crackdown has sparked disappearances in Baluchistan blamed on security forces. They say the disappearances swelled in the mid-2000s, when Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government cracked down on insurgents there.
Two years ago, the Voice for Baluch Missing Persons organisation handed the United Nations a list of 12,000 names they said belonged to people missing in the conflict.
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