Pakistani Police and military forces have killed more than 100 “Indian-backed terrorists” in counter-terrorism operations across the restive southwestern Balochistan province in the past 40 hours, government officials said Sunday, a day after coordinated suicide and gun attacks killed 33 people, mostly civilians.

The raids began early Saturday in multiple locations across Balochistan and killed 18 civilians, including five women and three children, and 15 security personnel, authorities said.

Sarfraz Bugti, the provincial chief minister, told reporters in Quetta that troops and police responded quickly, killing 145 members of “Fitna al-Hindustan,” the government’s term for the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which is allegedly backed by India. The number of militants killed in the last two days was the highest in decades, he said.

“The bodies of these 145 killed terrorists are in our custody, and some of them are Afghan nationals,” he said. Bugti claimed that “Indian-backed terrorists” wanted to take hostages but failed to reach the city center.

He spoke alongside senior government official Hamza Shafqat, who often oversees such operations against insurgents in the province, and praised the army, police and paramilitary forces for repelling the attack.

Militant attacks broke out on Saturday in a resource-rich region where Pakistan is seeking to attract foreign investment in mining and minerals. In September 2025, the US metals company signed a $500 million investment deal with Pakistan, a month after the US State Department designated the BLA and its armed wing as a foreign terrorist organization.

Residents described scenes of panic after a suicide bomber killed several police officers on Saturday.

“It was a very scary day in the history of Quetta,” said Khan Muhammad, a local resident. “Armed men were openly walking the roads before security forces arrived.”

Bugti has repeatedly accused India and Afghanistan of supporting the attackers and said senior BLA leaders, who claimed responsibility for the latest attacks in Balochistan, were operating from Afghan territory. Both Kabul and New Delhi deny the allegations.

He said on Sunday that the Afghan Taliban had pledged under the 2020 Doha agreement not to allow Afghan soil to be used as a base for attacks on other countries, but “unfortunately, Afghan soil is still being used against Pakistan.”

Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have been simmering since early October when Pakistan carried out airstrikes on what it described as Pakistani Taliban hideouts inside Afghanistan, killing dozens of alleged insurgents.

Bugti said militants stormed the house of a Baloch worker in Gwadar and killed five women and three children. He condemned the murders. He said the attackers planned to take hostages after storming government offices in the high-security zone of Quetta, but were thwarted. “We were aware of their plans and our forces were prepared,” he said.

The BLA is banned in Pakistan and has carried out numerous attacks in recent years, often targeting security forces, Chinese interests and infrastructure projects.

Authorities say the group operated with the support of the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. The TTP, a separate group, is allied with the Afghan Taliban, which returned to power in August 2021.

Balochistan has long faced a separatist insurgency by ethnic Baloch groups seeking greater autonomy or independence from Pakistan’s central government. The BLA regularly attacks Pakistani security forces and has attacked civilians, including Chinese nationals, among the thousands working on various projects in the province.