Rebel tribesmen set off a bomb near the home of a senior government official southwest Pakistan and launched a separate attack on a military post, triggering a gunbattle that left two attackers and a soldier dead, officials said.
Another attacker was killed when his motorcycle hit a land mine as he tried to escape after Sunday’s shootout near Sui, a mountain tribal town in southwest Baluchistan province, said Abdul Samad Lasi, a local government official. Two soldiers were injured in the gun fight.
Sparsely populated Baluchistan has in recent years been the scene of scores of bomb, rocket and land mine attacks, most blamed on renegade tribesmen demanding increased royalties for resources, such as natural gas, extracted in their territories.
Fighting between rival tribes has also caused hundreds of people to flee their homes.
A homemade bomb exploded Sunday near the home of Jam Mohammed Yousaf, the chief minister of Baluchistan, in Lasbella, a town about 280 miles southeast of Quetta, said Mohammed Afzal, a local police official.
The explosion shattered windows at Yousaf’s home and damaged a perimeter wall. Yousaf was not home when the explosion happened, Afzal said.
The attacks come as hundreds of members of one ethnic tribe were returning to Dera Bugti, a town near Sui from which they had fled 13 years ago because of feuding with a rival tribe, Lasi said.
Hundreds of heavily armed troops accompanied by helicopter gunships accompanied the returnees on the journey from Kashmor, a town in neighboring Sindh province where many have been living since 1993.
The returnees reached the center of Dera Bugti Sunday afternoon and were greeted by about 300 town residents. Lasi said their homes have been repaired with assistance from the government.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who was on a visit to the provincial capital Quetta on Sunday, held talks with senior provincial government officials on the situation in Baluchistan.
He said the government will use all its resources against those who challenge government authority and to restore peace.
Some 57 tribesmen have been arrested in recent days in connection with bomb and rocket attacks which have killed more than 250 people in just over a year in the province, police said Saturday.
Most of the suspects are Bugti and Marri tribesmen, Mujeebur Rahman, a senior police official, said Saturday in Quetta. Both have been blamed for attacks against the government.