QUETTA, Pakistan — Gunmen stormed a police training center in Pakistan’s restive Baluchistan province late Monday and detonated explosive vests, killing at least 48 police trainees, authorities said.
Baluchistan’s top health official, Noorul Haq, said at least 116 people were wounded – mostly police trainees and some paramilitary troops.
A security official put the death toll at 51. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media,
Major General Sher Afgan, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, told reporters Tuesday that the attackers appeared to be in contact with handlers in Afghanistan. He said the attackers belonged to the banned Lashker-e-Jhangvi Al-Almi group, an Islamic militant group affiliated with al-Qaida.
Neither Lashker-a-Jhangvi nor any other group has claimed responsibility for the attack. But the Islamic State group and breakaway Taliban faction Jamaat-ul Ahrar have claimed responsibility for past attacks in Baluchistan. Lashker-e-Jhangvi has mainly targeted members of minority Shiite sect of Muslims.
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