Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 38 people in three separate attacks on Monday, officials said, while the military said security forces killed 21 insurgents, marking one of the deadliest days of violence in the Baluchistan province.

In an overnight attack on buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail, a district in Baluchistan, 23 people were fatally shot, said senior police official Ayub Achakzai. Attackers burned at least 10 vehicles before fleeing.

In another incident, gunmen killed at least nine people, including four police officers and five passersby, in Baluchistan’s Qalat district, authorities said. The bodies of six people were found in the Bolan districts, where insurgents also blew up a railway track.

Other attacks targeted a police station in Mastung and vehicles in Gwadar, both districts in Baluchistan. No casualties were reported in those attacks.

The military said 14 security forces were “martyred” while responding to the attacks. Those appeared to be included in the overall death toll.

“Sanitization operations are being conducted and the instigators, perpetrators, facilitators and abettors of these heinous and cowardly acts, targeting innocent civilians, will be brought to justice,” the military said in a statement.

Baluchistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in Pakistan, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, mainly on security forces. The separatists have been demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad.

Although Pakistani authorities say they have quelled the insurgency, violence in Baluchistan has persisted.

People warned to avoid highways

The attack in Musakhail came hours after the outlawed Baluch Liberation Army separatist group warned people to stay away from highways as they launched attacks on security forces in various parts of the province.

There there was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest killings.

In a statement released Monday, the BLA said it inflicted heavy losses on security forces in attacks in the province. Pakistan’s military and government did not immediately comment on that claim. 

Separatists are known to ask people for their ID cards, and then abduct or kill those who are from outside the province. Many recent victims have come from neighbouring Punjab province.

Uzma Bukhari, a spokesperson for the Punjab provincial government, denounced the latest killings on Monday, saying the “attacks are a matter of grave concern” and urging the Baluchistan provincial government to “step up efforts to eliminate BLA terrorists.”

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement that security forces in Baluchistan responded to the latest attacks on Monday, killing 12 insurgents. He said authorities are investigating who was behind the latest attacks. 

In separate statements, Naqvi, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the attack in Musakhail “barbaric” and vowed that those behind it would not escape justice. Later, Naqvi also condemned the killings in Qalat.

Killings follow earlier violence

In April, BLA claimed responsibility for two attacks, one where nine people were killed after being abducted from a bus on a highway in Baluchistan, the second where a car was forced to stop and two people were killed and six wounded.

Syed Muhammad Ali, an Islamabad-based security analyst, said the latest killings of non-Baluch people are an attempt by separatists to harm the province economically.

Ali told The Associated Press that most such attacks are aimed at hampering development work in the province, noting that “the weakening of Baluchistan means the weakening of Pakistan.”

Separatists in Baluchistan have often killed workers and others from the country’s eastern Punjab region as part of a campaign to force them to leave the province.

Most such previous killings have been blamed on the outlawed group and others demanding independence from the central government in Islamabad. The Pakistani Taliban, a separate group from the Afghan Taliban that is allied with them, also have a presence in the province, and they are closely connected to the BLA.