QUETTA, Pakistan, Aug 26 (Reuters) – Armed separatist attacks on police stations, railway lines and highways in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, along with retaliatory attacks by security forces, have killed at least 51 people, officials said on Monday.

The most widespread attack by ethnic rebels in years is part of a decades-long effort to secede the resource-rich southwestern province, which is home to major Chinese-led projects such as a strategic port and a gold and copper mine.

“These attacks were a well-thought-out plan to create chaos in Pakistan,” Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement, adding that security forces had killed 12 militants in operations after the attacks, but he did not give details.

Officials said the largest attacks targeted vehicles ranging from buses to cargo trucks on a major highway, killing at least 23 people and setting 35 vehicles ablaze.

Railways official Mohammad Kashif said rail traffic with Quetta was halted after explosions on a railway bridge linking the provincial capital to the rest of Pakistan, as well as on a railway line with neighbouring Iran.

Police said they had found six unidentified bodies so far near the site of the attack on the railway bridge.

Officials said the militants also targeted police and security posts in Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province, killing at least 10 people in one attack.

The Balochistan Liberation Army militant group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to reporters, claiming responsibility for several other attacks, including one on a major paramilitary base, although this has yet to be confirmed by Pakistani authorities.

The Balochistan Liberation Army is the largest of the ethnic rebel groups that has fought the central government for decades, saying the government unfairly exploits Balochistan’s gas and mineral resources. It seeks to expel China and create an independent province.

Naqvi’s comments came after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s office vowed in a statement that security forces would respond to the attacks and bring those responsible to justice.

Passengers killed

Gunmen blocked a highway in Balochistan on Sunday night, pulled passengers out of vehicles and shot them after checking their identity cards, Ayub Achakzai, a senior police commander, told Reuters.

About 35 vehicles, including trucks, caught fire on the highway in the Masakhel area.

“The gunmen not only killed the passengers but also the drivers of the trucks carrying the coal,” said Hamid Zahir, the district’s deputy commissioner.

The militants have targeted workers from the eastern province of Punjab, whom they see as exploiting their resources.

In the past, they have also attacked Chinese interests and citizens in the province, where China operates the strategic deep-water port of Gwadar in the south, as well as a gold and copper mine in its west.

The Balochistan Liberation Movement said its fighters targeted military personnel travelling in civilian clothes and shot them after they were identified.

The Pakistani Interior Ministry said the dead were innocent citizens.

Six security personnel, three civilians and a tribal leader were among the 10 killed in clashes with militants who stormed a Balochistan forces post in the central Kalat district, police official Dostin Khan Dashti said.

Officials said police stations were also attacked in the two southern coastal cities, but the death toll has not yet been confirmed.

Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, is Pakistan’s largest province in size, but it is the least populous and remains largely underdeveloped, with high levels of poverty.

(This story has been resubmitted to correct the spelling of “out” in paragraph 3.)

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