Militants abduct 16 laborers working on a mining project in restive northwestern Pakistan

Militants ambushed a vehicle in restive northwestern Pakistan and abducted 16 laborers working on a mining project, police and two security officials said.

The insurgents also burned the vehicle that had been carrying the workers on a narrow road in Lakki Marwat district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, police officer Mohammad Ijaz said.

The attack occurred as the laborers were traveling from Lakki Marwat to a nearby mining project, Ijaz said. He gave no further details.

Other security officials said the mining project where the men worked is related to the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, but that the abducted laborers are not its employees.

No one from the commission was immediately available for comment.

Hours later, militants sent a video to journalists, showing some of the abducted laborers. In the video, one of the men was seen urging authorities to accept the kidnappers’ demands for their release, but it was unclear what those demands were.

There was no immediate claim for the abduction, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban, which have stepped up attacks on security forces and civilians in recent months.

The latest attack came a day after dozens of armed Baloch separatists seized a government office, robbed a bank and partially burned a police station in a remote district in southwestern Pakistan before fleeing when security forces arrived, police said Thursday.

The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack on Wednesday in Khuzdar in Balochistan, where analysts say separatists are becoming as large a threat to national security as the Pakistani Taliban.

There were no casualties in the attack, authorities said.

Suhail Khalid, a local police officer, said the insurgents fled when security forces arrived and the situation was under control.

In recent months, Balochistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province have experienced a surge in militant violence, most blamed on the Baloch army and the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

The Pakistani Taliban is an ally of the Afghan Taliban, which seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in 2021. The Afghan Taliban’s takeover has emboldened the Pakistani Taliban, whose leaders and fighters are hiding in Afghanistan.

Oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but also least populated province. It is the home of the country’s ethnic Baloch minority, who say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government.