Militant attack on Pakistan police kills at least 13

At least 13 people, including nine police officers and four militants, were killed and another 21 wounded in a gun and bomb attack on a police compound in southwestern Balochistan province on Tuesday, officials and local media said.

The attack on the compound that houses several police offices in Loralai district, located some 154 km from provincial capital Quetta, occurred when scores of cadets were giving a test, local broadcaster Dunya News reported.

Abdul Majeed Dashti, a city police chief, told Anadolu Agency nine police officers and four attackers were killed in a four-hour long battle, whereas 21 others, mostly policemen were injured in the attack – the second in less than a month in the district.

"The clearance operation is over. All four terrorists have been killed in the operation," he said.

The Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP and which is separate from the Afghan Taliban, claimed responsibility. 

Brazen attack

"They also stormed the office of the deputy inspector general of police, who luckily was not present there," Dashti said adding, "Most of the hand grenades fell in the area where the cadets were giving a test."

Baloch separatists and the Taliban have long been targeting the security forces in the region.

Restive province

On January 1, terrorists stormed a para-military force compound in Loralai, killing four troops. 

Last November, a similar attack on the Chinese Consulate in Karachi killed seven people, including three militants of separatist group Balochistan Liberation Army. 

Militant violence in Pakistan has fallen sharply from the levels seen a decade ago, but incidents still occur periodically in Balochistan, Pakistan's largest and poorest province, which is at the centre of the strategic China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) infrastructure development project.