Security forces in Pakistan's Balochistan province killed seven militants during a clearance operation in the coastal city of Gwadar, security sources said on Friday, a day after gunmen attempted to attack an unoccupied camp belonging to a construction company.

Source: The News International

The operation was still under way on Friday to secure the surrounding area against improvised explosive devices, the sources said. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi praised the security forces for foiling the attack and said those seeking to obstruct Balochistan's development would face defeat, according to reports of his remarks.

In the first accounts of the incident on Thursday evening, security sources told Pakistani media that three militants had been killed in an exchange of fire at the camp and seven more had been surrounded — three at the camp itself and four inside a hotel near the Gwadar highway, where a second operation was running at the same time. The News, The Express Tribune and Geo News all carried that account, citing security sources.

Three senior government officials told BBC Urdu that attacks had been reported at three locations in Gwadar district — the construction company's camp near Gwadar city, Suntser, and the Gabd-Rimdan border crossing with Iran, known locally as the 250 border.

Why Gwadar matters

Gwadar is the centrepiece port of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and militant attacks on projects and workers there have repeatedly raised questions about the security of Chinese-backed investment in Balochistan. Pakistani authorities said the attackers belonged to the group they call Fitna al-Hindustan, a label Islamabad uses for the banned Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and which Pakistan links to India — an affiliation and linkage that have not been independently verified, and which India has denied in past cases.

Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in militant attacks in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since the Afghan Taliban returned to power in Kabul in 2021, and Islamabad has repeatedly urged Kabul to stop militant groups using Afghan soil — a charge the Taliban authorities deny.