Baloch ‘missing person’ among gunmen who attacked Gwadar hotel

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: A 35-year-old Baloch from the Marri tribe of Balochistan, who was earlier claimed to be a ‘missing person’, has turned out to be a terrorist as he took part in Saturday’s attack at a luxury hotel in the port city of Gwadar.

Balochistan Liberation Army’s (BLA) Majeed Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack at the five-star hotel, and according to a statement issued by its spokesman Jeeyand Baloch, Hammal Fateh Baloch alias Habib is also on the list of four people who were involved in the attack. The other three attackers were identified as Asad Baloch alias Mehrab, Munseeb Baloch alias Kareem and Kochkol Baloch alias Commando. According to BLA-funded website Balochwarna News, the 35-year-old Hammal Fateh Baloch alias Habib s/o Qadir Khan had been missing since last two years.

The hotel is the only luxury facility in Gwadar, formerly a small fishing village, and is where foreign and Pakistani business delegations as well as diplomats stay when visiting the city. It sits isolated on a ridge overlooking the Gwadar port, which is the flagship project of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

The attack comes just weeks after 14 people, including 11 security personnel, were killed by gunmen near Ormara in Gwadar.

Security across most of Pakistan has vastly improved over recent years following a major military crackdown after the country’s worst attack, when some 150 people, most of them children, were killed in an attack on a school in Peshawar in 2014.