14 passengers shot dead after being offloaded from bus in Pakistan
Karachi: Unidentified gunmen shot dead at least 14 passengers after forcing them to disembark from a bus on a highway in Pakistan's restive Balochistan province, a media report said Thursday.
According to Levies sources, around 15 to 20 unidentified gunmen in camouflage uniform reportedly stopped five or six buses travelling between Karachi and Gwadar.
They stopped a bus on the Makran Coastal Highway in Balochistan's Ormara area, checked the identity cards of passengers and offloaded about 16 of them.
At least 14 were shot dead, while two passengers managed to escape the massacre and made it to the nearest Levies check post. They were shifted to a hospital for treatment, the Dawn newspaper reported.
Levies and other law enforcement personnel reached the spot and launched an investigation into the incident. The bodies of the victims were recovered from Noor Baksh Hotel, the report said.
The motive behind the killings and the identity of the victims are yet to be ascertained.
Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is Pakistan's largest and poorest province, rife with ethnic, sectarian and separatist insurgencies.
An ISIS suicide attack targeting Hazara Shias in the provincial capital of Quetta last week killed 21 people and injured 60 others.
Armed gunmen kidnapped about two dozen passengers from two Karachi-bound coaches from Balochistan's Mastung area in 2015, killing at least 19 of them in the mountainous area of Khad Kocha.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Sri Lanka recovers 87 bodies from Iranian warship sunk off its coast by US submarine
Colombo (AP): A US submarine sank an Iranian warship off the coast of Sri Lanka, and Sri Lanka's navy said Wednesday it recovered 87 bodies and rescued 32 people.
The Iranian vessel that was sunk in the Indian Ocean was the Islamic Republic's “prize ship,” US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said at a Pentagon news briefing. Hegseth said it was the first sinking of an enemy ship with a torpedo by the US since World War II.
Sri Lanka's Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told Parliament that its navy received information that the IRIS Dena, with 180 people on board, was in distress and sinking. The island nation sent ships and air force planes on a rescue mission, he said.
Navy spokesman Commander Buddhika Sampath said by the time navy ships reached the location, there was no sign of the ship and “there were only some oil patches and life rafts. We found people floating on the water.”
He said the 32 people rescued were admitted to a hospital in the seaside town of Galle on the Sri Lanka's southern coast. The bodies recovered were being brought to land, he said.
Dr Anil Jasinghe, a top health ministry official, said one of those rescued is in critical condition, seven are receiving emergency treatment and others are being treated for minor injuries.
The IRIS Dena — one of Iran's newest warships — is a Moudge-class frigate that patrols in deep water for the Iranian navy. It is armed with heavy guns, surface-to-air missiles, anti-ship missiles and torpedoes. It also carries one helicopter.
The frigate was the centerpiece of a two-ship international tour in 2023 that included port calls in countries including South Africa and Brazil. It was accompanied by the support ship IRIS Makran, a converted oil tanker.
The US Treasury Department included both ships on a sanctions designation in February 2023 along with eight executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer that supplied the weapons to Russia for use against civilian targets in Ukraine.
At least 17 Iranian naval vessels have been sunk during the ongoing war, said US Adm Brad Cooper, who leads the American military's Central Command.
“We are also sinking the Iranian navy — the entire navy,” he said in a video message.
