At least three security personnel were killed and 20 were wounded in a suicide bombing on Sunday in Pakistan’s northwestern Baluchistan province. The Tahreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, took responsibility for the attack. 

The attack happened near a security checkpoint, manned by paramilitary forces, on Quetta-Mustang road, when a suicide bomber detonated explosives. The attack happened when the security detail of the checkpoint was being changed, Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said. 

The bomber strapped the motorcycle he was riding on with six kilograms of explosives and rammed one of the vehicles in an FC convoy, Azhar Akram, a senior police officer was quoted as saying by Reuters. 

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack in a tweet.

The Sunday attack on Pakistani security forces was the first attack claimed by the TTP since the Afghan Taliban took control of Afghanistan. The two groups are known to enjoy close relations. 

Importantly, the Taliban after seizing power in Afghanistan, freed thousands of TTP militants locked up in Afghan jails, raising fear among Pakistan’s security circle about the spike in the group’s activity in the country. 

Last month, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a bus carrying Chinese workers, killing two Pakistani children playing by the roadside and wounding a Chinese national and two other Pakistanis in the port city of Gwadar.

Importantly, the group has stepped its attacks in the last two years, raising the toll among Pakistan security personnel. Projects funded by China under its flagship China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have increasingly been targeted by militants. 

China, which had also expressed concern over the security situation in the country, has invested over 70 billion in various projects so far. These projects often come under attack by both Baloch and TTP insurgents. The former has for years been waging a low-level insurgency for an independent Baluchistan, one of the most mineral-rich provinces in the country. 

(SAM)