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Quetta: Suspected tribal insurgents ambushed a security patrol in resource-rich southwestern Pakistan, sparking gunbattles that killed three soldiers and 15 militants, an official said on Sunday.
Major General Salim Nawaz said that five other soldiers were wounded in fighting late Saturday near the gas-producing town of Sui, about 290km southeast of the regional capital, Quetta.
Authorities regularly blame attacks targeting security forces and gas installations around Sui on rebel tribesmen who are waging a violent campaign to force the central government to increase royalties for local resources.
Salim said that the three troops were killed in the attack in Toba Mandrani area near Sui. Security forces retaliated, killing 15 insurgents, some near the scene of the ambush and others during subsequent clashes and search operations.
The insurgency in the southwestern Balochistan province is rooted in long-standing grievances by ethnic-Baloch leaders who say their province has been deprived of its due share of development funds.
The Balochistan unrest is separate from the Islamist militancy that Pakistan is facing along its northwestern frontier with Afghanistan.
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