Bus passengers massacred by gunmen in Pakistan

At least 14 people were slaughtered by militants after being forced out of the vehicles they were travelling in

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Gunmen massacred at least 14 bus passengers after forcing them out of the vehicles they were travelling in in Pakistan's Balochistan province.

The attackers, who numbered around two dozen, were wearing uniforms of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, provincial home secretary Haider Ali told AFP.

They "stopped buses on the Makran Coastal Highway and gunned down 14 people", he said, adding that the four vehicles were travelling to the port city of Karachi from the coastal town of Ormara.

The assailants identified non-Baloch passengers by their identity cards and shot them, he said. All the victims are believed to be Pakistani nationals, with a naval official and a coastguard member among the dead.

The attack was claimed by a Baloch separatist group. A militant spokesman denied that any civilian passengers had been killed and said the group had only targeted coast guard and navy service members.

Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is Pakistan's poorest province and the largest by landmass, with Islamist as well as ethnic separatists active there.

The country's security forces have been targeting insurgents in the province since 2004, and have also been repeatedly accused by international rights groups of abuses there. The military denies the allegations.

Provincial home minister Mir Zia Langov told AFP a full-scale investigation had been launched into the attack, and authorities are trying to track down the gunmen, who he said had fled the scene.

"Such incidents are intolerable and we will not spare the terrorists who carried out this dastardly attack," he said.

Prime Minster Imran Khan also condemned the killings in a statement from his office.

The attack came less than a week after a suicide blast claimed by the ISIS in provincial capital Quetta killed 20 people.