QUETTA, Pakistan, Feb 2, (AP): Pakistani police and military forces killed over a 100 "Indian-backed terrorists ” in counterterrorism operations across the restive southwestern province of Balochistan over the past 40 hours, government officials said on Sunday, a day after coordinated suicide and gun attacks killed 33 people, mostly civilians.

The raids began early Saturday at multiple locations across Balochistan, and left 18 civilians, including five women and three children, and 15 security personnel dead, authorities said. Sarfraz Bugti, the provincial chief minister, told reporters in Quetta that troops and police officers responded swiftly, killing 145 members of " Fitna al-Hindustan,” a phrase the government uses for the allegedly Indian-backed outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA.

The number of militants killed over the past 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 the ”Indian-backed terrorists" wanted to take hostages but failed to make it to the city center. He spoke alongside senior government official Hamza Shafqat, who often oversees such operations against insurgents in the province, and praised the military, police and paramilitary forces for repelling the assaults.

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

Residents described scenes of panic after a suicide bombing 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 roaming openly on the roads before security forces arrived.” Bugti repeatedly accused India and Afghanistan of backing the assailants and said senior leaders of the BLA, which 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 Afghanistan’s Taliban had pledged under the 2020 Doha agreement not to allow Afghan soil to be used as a base for attacking other countries, but "unfortunately, the Afghan soil was still being used against Pakistan.” Tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan have persisted since early October when Pakistan carried out airstrikes on what it described as Pakistani Taliban hideouts inside Afghanistan, killing dozens of alleged insurgents.