Islamabad [Pakistan], November 21: Pakistan is preparing to launch a military offensive in the south-western region of Balochistan where sub-nationalist rebels target Chinese investments under the President Xi Jinping's flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), officials said.
The country's political and military leaders decided to begin the operation in the volatile province of Balochistan after a marathon security meeting on Tuesday night, the prime minister office said in a statement. The plan was firmed up after a surge in attacks by an ethnic rebel group called the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) that is opposed to Chinese projects in the region including a deep-sea port. BLA guerillas launch suicide, bomb and gun attacks against the Chinese workers, Pakistan's security forces and civilians from other ethnicities in Balochistan and as far as in the country's southern commercial city of Karachi. China is building a port in the region as part of a $62 billion project to link its Xinjian province with the Arabian Sea through a network of roads and rail tracks to reach markets in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and beyond. (DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune
