Fighters reportedly fire at a vehicle carrying Frontier Corps paramilitaries trying to dismantle a roadblock.

At least 18 paramilitary soldiers and 24 armed attackers have been killed in two related incidents in southwestern Pakistan, according to officials and local media reports, as sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence escalates in the region.

Pakistan’s military on Saturday said fighters tried to set up roadblocks overnight in the restive province of Balochistan, and most of the deaths took place as security forces removed them.

A vehicle “carrying unarmed Frontier Corps paramilitaries” near the town of Mangochar “came under gunfire from 70 to 80 armed assailants who had blocked the road”, a police official told the AFP news agency.

The officer said three other paramilitaries were seriously injured while two escaped unharmed.

In a statement, the Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack on the paramilitary, but gave a lower death toll of 17.

At least 11 of the attackers were killed in what the military described as follow-up “clearance operations” on Saturday.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement condemned the attack.

The mineral-rich Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has been the scene of a decade-old rebellion by separatist ethnic Baloch groups. Several armed groups also operate there.

On Tuesday, in a separate incident, attackers in an explosive-laden vehicle were thwarted in their attempt to overrun a Pakistani security post near the border with Afghanistan.

In January, at least six people were killed in an attack also claimed by the BLA, one of the main separatist groups in the region. In November, the BLA also said it carried out coordinated attacks that killed at least 39 people, one of the highest tolls in the region.

In August, at least 73 people were killed in Balochistan when separatist fighters attacked police stations, railway lines and highways, and security forces launched retaliatory operations.

The violence also comes in the backdrop of worsening relations between Pakistan and the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan.

A similarly dramatic uptick in attacks has been witnessed elsewhere in Pakistan in recent months, including in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In 2024 alone, the military reported 383 soldiers and 925 fighters killed in various border area clashes.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies