QUETTA: Fourteen Pakistani soldiers were killed on Monday in an ambush blamed on separatist rebels in the country's southwestern Balochistan province, the Frontier Corps paramilitary force said.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Pakistani troops and marked the highest number of military dead in a single incident since March when friendly fire killed 13 soldiers on the northwestern border with Afghanistan.
Up to four dozen rebels struck before dawn in the Musa Khel district, 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of the provincial capital Quetta in one of the most troubled and deprived parts of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
The military said the troops were guarding a private coal mine and blamed the attack on Baloch rebels, who rose up in 2004 to demand political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the province's wealth of natural resources.
“Fourteen paramilitary personnel, including a major, were killed and several others were wounded. Baloch militants were involved,” the spokesman told AFP.
Security officials said the rebels were armed with automatic weapons and that most of the soldiers died from gunshot wounds in the remote area.
The wilds of Balochistan, virtually a no-go area for journalists, is deeply troubled not only by local insurgency, but militancy and a rising number of sectarian attacks on minority Shia Muslims.
The province straddles a key Nato supply route into neighbouring Afghanistan and on Sunday gunmen torched three trucks carrying supplies to US-led troops.
The federal government, elected in February 2008, has struggled to implement reforms and inject more money in order to appease Baloch nationalists.
Security officials said Musa Khel, which is dominated by ethnic Pashtuns and borders the Baloch-dominated district of Kohlu, had seen several private coal mines closed due to local tribal disputes.
Troops intervened to resolve those disputes. The coal mines were inaugurated by army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in August and work began with the military providing protection, the officials said.
But Baloch separatist rebels oppose the military presence and there have been a string of attacks on troops in the area.
The scene of Monday's attack was not far from Sui town, where two other soldiers were killed in a bombing on Saturday.
Last month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the government planned to create 20,000 jobs in Balochistan, admitting that past neglect of the region had fuelled its troubles.
He announced a six percent employment quota in some federal government departments and the introduction of 3,000 jobs in tribal police for Balochistan residents.
But previous attempts at regional reform have failed to raise the sparsely populated area from poverty and conflict.
In November 2009, the government announced a package of reforms, including an increase in the provincial budget as well as constitutional, administrative, political and economic reforms in a bid to grant Balochistan more independence.
But there is dispute over how much of the deal ever came to fruition.
Hundreds of people have died since Baloch insurgents rose up in 2004 demanding autonomy and a greater share of the profits from natural resources in the mineral-rich province.
Disappearances and the discovery of bullet-riddled and tortured bodies in the province that the families of victims blame on security and intelligence forces have led human rights activists to call for investigations into the killings.
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