The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) on Saturday declared that its combatants have fully captured Surab city in Pakistan's Balochistan province, halting all the military, administrative, and financial activities of the state. The daring action came on the day that Pakistan Army Chief Asim Munir visited the provincial capital Quetta.
The operation continued for more than three hours on Friday, when their militants captured strategic points and main roads across Surab, BLA spokesperson Jeeyand Baloch explained.
The organization says it has taken over a number of key government facilities such as the Pakistani Levies paramilitary base, the police station, the Deputy Commissioner (DC) office, a guest house, and a bank, in addition to destroying government property.
In a statement, BLA claimed that during the raid, they arrested Levies and police personnel, seizing 30 Kalashnikov rifles and other weapons and military gear from security points at police stations and the DC office.
These personnel were allegedly released on some conditions involving their Baloch identity. The combatants also torched three government force vehicles, state warehouses, a guesthouse, and three banks, as they seized two vehicles for their operation.
The statement reported an incident in the DC office where Assistant Deputy Commissioner Hidayatullah Buledi was said to have tried to attack the fighters but was overpowered without injury and kept locked in a room. The BLA claim Buledi suffocated in what they described as an accidental event.
Further establishing their authority, the BLA declared that they had set up checkpoints on the Quetta-Karachi and Surab-Gidar highways and enforced rigid restrictions on governmental movement through surprise checkpoints of vehicles. They referred to this operation as part of their commitment to destroying every symbol and institution of the Pakistani state in Balochistan and promised to continue their campaign until Baloch national liberation is attained.
The situation in Balochistan is still tense, with the people of the region resisting independence from Pakistan. Several human rights organizations have consistently reported serious abuses perpetrated by Pakistani security forces, such as raids against homes, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, preventive law detentions, and planted criminal cases.
Recently this month, the BLA put out a media release with the title "A New Order has Become Inevitable in the Region", calling on the international community to designate Pakistan a state sponsor of terror. The release condemned Pakistan's past as being one of failed promises and state-sponsored terror, and blamed Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, for backing terror outfits like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), and ISIS.
Referring to Pakistan as a "nuclear state with a violent ideology," the BLA stated that despite having no foreign military or financial support, the Baloch warriors have been able to take on powerful Pakistani forces on various fronts. The statement ended on the note that lasting peace in the area is not possible without eradicating Pakistan's presence.
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