BLA behind PSX attack: Know Balochistan Liberation Army

Islamabad has blamed the Balochistan Liberation Army for carrying out a series of attacks in Karachi in recent years, including an attack on the Chinese Consulate in 2018 that killed two people. The BLA has also opposed the one-road project including a highway connecting the Gwadar port to the Chinese border.

Karachi: The Balochistan Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the attack on Pakistan Stock Exchange that killed 10 people. The group has been waging an insurgency for years, demanding independence for Pakistan's gas-rich southwestern Balochistan province, which borders the southern Sindh province, near Karachi.

The group also circulated to the media a photograph of four men in full body armor and camouflage outfits, saying they were the militants who attacked the stock exchange.

The Balochistan Liberation Army -- which Pakistan says has found safe haven across the border in Afghanistan -- has carried out a series of attacks in Karachi in recent years, including an attack on the Chinese Consulate in November 2018 killing two people.

The Arabian Sea port of Gwadar is located in Balochistan, which is part of China’s multi-billion-dollar one-road project linking south and Central Asia to China. The Balochistan militant group has opposed the one-road project including a highway connecting the Gwadar port to the Chinese border.

In July 2019, Washington declared the BLA as a global terrorist organisation, a move decried as "unjustified" by the separatist group fighting Pakistani rule in the resource-rich Balochistan province.

The Department of State had designated the BLA as specially designated global terrorist (SDGT) outfit and made it a crime for anyone in the US to assist the outfit's militants and freezing any US assets they may have.

In 2006, Pakistan banned the outfit and had been urging the US to do the same.

With inputs from agencies