QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) – Gunmen stormed a police training center in Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Baluchistan on Monday, killing at least one person and wounding 88 others, hours after another attack killed two customs officers and wounded a third, authorities said.
Two of the gunmen were also killed in the counter-terrorism operation that continued hours after the attack began.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for either attack. Baluchistan is the scene of an ongoing low-intensity insurgency by Baloch separatist groups, who have claimed such hit-and-run attacks on security forces and government officials in the recent past. Islamic militants also have a presence in the province bordering Afghanistan.
In Monday night’s attack, between four and six gunmen opened fire as they attacked a hostel at the police training center in a suburban area of the provincial capital of Quetta.
“They were rushing toward our building firing shots so we rushed for safety toward the roof and jumped down in the back to save our lives,” one of the police trainees told Geo television.