The Pakistani military says suspected militants in separate attacks raided a security post and targeted a vehicle carrying troops, resulting in the deaths of at least four soldiers and four militants.
In a statement on June 1, the military said the first incident in southwestern Pakistan occurred when a group of militants attacked a security post in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern province of Balochistan, killing four soldiers and wounding six others.
Troops returned fire, killing four attackers and wounding eight others, the statement said.
In the second attack, militants set off a roadside bomb aimed at a security vehicle, wounding two soldiers in the district of Turbat in Balochistan.
No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, and no further details were immediately available.
Balochistan is the scene of an ethnic Baloch separatist insurgency and a brutal state crackdown that has killed thousands of people since 2004.
Activists claim Pakistan’s powerful military has committed widespread abuses in Balochistan, including enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings of political activists and suspected separatists, arbitrary arrests, and torture.