Gunmen kill 23 passengers taken from vehicles in an attack in southwest Pakistan

Gunmen fatally shot 23 passengers after identifying them and taking them from buses, vehicles and trucks in one of the deadliest attacks in restive southwestern Pakistan, police and officials said Monday.

The killings occurred overnight in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan province, senior police official Ayub Achakzai said. The attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing the scene.

In a separate attack early Monday, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passersby, in Qalat district in Baluchistan, authorities said. There were also reports of shootings in other parts of the province.

Insurgents blew up a railway track in Bolan, a district in the province, disrupting railroad traffic. Gunmen also attacked a police station in Mastung district in Baluchistan, but there were no reported casualties.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi in separate statements called the attack in Musakhail “barbaric” and vowed that those who were behind it would not escape justice.

Later, Naqvi also condemned the killings in Qalat.

The attack in Musakhail came hours after the outlawed Baluch Liberation Army separatist group warned people to stay away from highways, as they launched attacks on security forces in various parts of the province. But there there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the overnight killings.

Separatists often ask people for their ID cards, and then abduct or kill those who come from Punjab or other provinces.

In May, gunmen fatally shot seven barbers in Gwadar, a port city in Baluchistan.

In April, separatists killed nine people after abducting them from a bus on a highway in Baluchistan, and the attackers also killed two people and wounded six in another car they forced to stop. BLA claimed responsibility for those attacks at the time.

Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the latest killings of non-Baluch people is an attempt by separatists to harm the province economically.

Ali told The Associated Press that most such attacks are carried out with the aim to economically weaken Baluchistan, noting that “the weakening of Baluchistan means the weakening of Pakistan.”

He said insurgent attacks could hamper development work being done in the province.

Separatists in Baluchistan have often killed workers and others from the country’s eastern Punjab region as part of a campaign to force them to leave the province, which for years has experienced a low-level insurgency.

Most such previous killings have been blamed on the outlawed group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. Islamic militants also have a presence in the province.