Pakistan officials said Monday that security forces killed at least four insurgents trying to infiltrate a naval air base in southwestern Baluchistan province.
A security official told VOA that the late-night insurgent attack in Turbat, a turbulent district in the sparsely populated province, was quickly intercepted and thwarted.
"The situation is under control. All the attackers have been neutralized," the Pakistani official told VOA, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. He said the clashes did not inflict any casualties on security forces.
The Baluch Liberation Army (BLA), an outlawed insurgent group, took responsibility for staging the assault. In a statement sent to reporters, the group said members of its so-called suicide unit, known as the Majeed Brigade, had carried out the raid and inflicted heavy casualties on Pakistani forces.
Designated as a global terrorist organization by Pakistan, the United Kingdom and the United States, BLA often releases inflated details about its violent campaigns.
The Pakistani province, rich in natural resources, has experienced a decadeslong insurgency spearheaded by BLA and other outlawed insurgent groups.
Last week, eight heavily armed BLA militants stormed a government compound in nearby Gwadar district, home to a China-operated port. The ensuing gunfight killed all the assailants and left several Pakistani security personnel dead.
The deep-water Gwadar port is located near the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial oil shipping route in the Arabian Sea. A Chinese state company built the port and runs it under a long-term agreement with the Pakistani government.
The port is central to the multibillion-dollar bilateral collaboration known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, or CPEC, an extension of Beijing's global infrastructure program, known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
Separatist Baluch insurgents have also attacked Chinese experts working on CPEC and other projects, killing several of them in recent years and prompting China to repeatedly call on Pakistan to enhance the security of its citizens.
