Gunmen Kill Seven Pakistani Coast Guards

QUETTA, Pakistan -- Gunmen have attacked a coast guard checkpost in Pakistan's southwestern Pakistan Balochistan Province, killing seven coast guards and injuring at least five others.

A local coast guard official told RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal that the attack took place on July 27 in the coastal city of Gawadar, near the Pakistan-Iran border.

The gunmen fled.

Meanwhile, Akbar Hussain Durrani, the provincial home secretary, said a group of gunmen armed with rockets and heavy weapons attacked the checkpost.

A spokesman for the separatist Baloch Liberation Front claimed responsibility for the attack.

He claimed the gunmen kidnapped two coast guards.

Balochistan suffers from Islamist militancy and a regional insurgency, with rebels demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's national resources.

It has also increasingly become a flashpoint for sectarian violence between Pakistan's majority Sunni Muslims and Shi'ites.

With reporting by AFP