Civilians Targeted in Balochistan: Three Killed, Including Two Women, in Pakistani Drone Strike in Zehri
SHAAL (QUETTA): A Pakistani military drone strike on night of September 19 in Zehri Tehsil of Khuzdar district, Balochistan, has left three people dead including two women and five others injured, among them a four-year-old child. The attack has sparked renewed outrage and concern over the growing trend of civilian casualties in Pakistani military aggressions across Balochistan.
According to local sources, the drone strike occurred near the Trasani area of Zehri, where 40-year-old Bibi Amna wife of Sanaullah, 41-year-old Lal Bibi wife of Ali Akbar, and 30-year-old Mohammad Hassan son of Mohammad Yaqoob were killed on the spot. All were unarmed civilians, with no known militant affiliations.
Shortly after the attack, Levies officials arrived at the scene and began shifting the injured to hospitals. However, Frontier Corps (FC) personnel intercepted them near Anjeera Cross and took the wounded into custody.
Sources report that injured individuals were taken to various locations: Sanaullah and the child were shifted to Surab, two others to Quetta, while the injured Ali Akbar was taken to an undisclosed location.
Among those killed were the wife of Ali Akbar, a man previously reported as forcibly disappeared, as well as the wife of injured Sanaullah and a relative, raising questions about the deliberate targeting of victims of enforced disappearances.
Pakistani military officials later confirmed the drone strike, claiming it targeted members of a Baloch armed separatist group. However, no names or proof were provided to support this assertion.
This incident is the second attack in Zehri within a week in which civilians have been killed. Earlier, on September 15, military aircraft bombed a mountainous area in Zehri, resulting in three more civilian deaths. In both cases, the military’s media wing, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), claimed that Baloch fighters’ hideouts were targeted and that weapons were seized but again failed to release any evidence or identities.
Pattern of Targeting Civilians
Human rights activists and local observers say such attacks reflect a disturbing pattern in Balochistan. Whenever Pakistani forces are unable to confront Baloch armed groups directly, they often retaliate by targeting unarmed civilians or the families of previously disappeared persons.
In recent years, there has been a sharp rise in staged encounters, where individuals who had been forcibly disappeared months or years earlier are killed in fake gunfights and then falsely labelled as “militants.” Many of these incidents have involved people who were last seen in the custody of Pakistani security agencies.
The ongoing military campaign in Zehri, which began in earnest in August following a wave of attacks on Pakistani forces, has now claimed the lives of at least six civilians and left more than five others wounded. With no accountability or transparency, families in Balochistan say they continue to live under the constant threat of violence, disappearance, or death, not from insurgent groups, but from the state [Pakistan] itself.
Calls for independent investigations and international scrutiny are growing louder, but Pakistani authorities continue to deny wrongdoing, maintaining that all operations are conducted within the bounds of national security.
As violence escalates and civilian deaths mount, Balochistan remains a flashpoint in Pakistan’s internal security crisis — one where the line between counterinsurgency and collective punishment continues to blur.
