UPDATE 3 - Pakistan: 10 killed as militants storm police compound

UPDATES WITH MORE CASUALTIES; EDITS THROUGHOUT

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - At least 10 people, including nine police officers, were killed and another 21 injured in a gun-and-bomb attack on a police compound in southwestern Balochistan province on Tuesday, officials and local media reported.

The attack on the compound which houses several police offices in Loralai district, located some 154 kilometers (95.69 miles) from provincial capital Quetta, occurred when scores of cadets were giving a test, local broadcaster Dunya News reported.

Abdul Majeed Dashti, a city police chief, told Anadolu Agency nine police officers and four attackers were killed in four-hour long battle; whereas 21 others, mostly cops were injured in the attack -- the second in less than a month in the district.

“The clearance operation is over. All four terrorists have been killed in the operation”, he said.

The assailants, he added, first fired and then hurled hand grenades on different locations inside the compound.

“They also stormed the office of the deputy inspector general of police, who luckily was not present there,” Dashti said adding: “Most of the hand grenades fell in the area where the cadets were giving test.”

There was no immediate word of claiming responsibility for the brazen attack, however Baloch separatists and the Taliban have long been targeting the security forces in the region.

On Jan. 1, terrorists stormed a para-military force compound in Loralai, killing four troops. Four terrorists had been killed in exchange of fire with security forces while one blew himself up.

Last November, a similar attack on the Chinese Consulate in Karachi killed seven people, including three militants of separatist group Balochistan Liberation Army.

The large Balochistan province has been plagued by violence for over six decades with separatists claiming it was forcibly incorporated into Pakistan at the end of British rule in 1947.

The province is also a key route of China's billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative project which aims to connect China's strategically important northwestern Xinxiang province to Balochistan’s Gawadar port through a network of roads, railways and pipelines to transport cargo, oil and gas.