Three paramilitary soldiers and a policeman were killed when gunmen opened fire, here on Saturday, officials said. "Three paramilitary soldiers and one policeman have been killed while a passerby has been injured in an attack on the paramilitary troops," local police official Syed Zahid Hussain told AFP. The incident was also confirmed by a spokesman from the local paramilitary force.
The shooting was claimed by the Al-Alami faction of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) group, according to a statement released by a spokesman. Last month, the outfit said it worked with the Islamic State group to execute a massive night raid on a police college that killed 61 people, the deadliest assault on a security installation in Pakistan's history. Mineral-rich Balochistan province, of which Quetta is capital, has been plagued for decades by a separatist insurgency and sectarian killings.
In August, a suicide bombing at a Quetta hospital claimed by the Islamic State group and the Jamaat-ul-Ahrar wing of the Pakistani Taliban killed 73 people, including many of the city's lawyer community who had gone there to mourn the fatal shooting of a colleague.