QUETTA, Jan 22: An unannounced cessation of hostilities between security agencies and armed tribesmen on Sunday brought uneasy calm to the battle-scarred towns of Dera Bugti and Kohlu. Officials in Sui and the Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) spokesman acknowledged that there were no incident of firing on the Dera Bugti front throughout the day.

Following the death of seven civilians in Saturday’s shelling, the JWP spokesman said the number of fatalities had gone up to 72 since the hostilities broke out in the third week of December. Another 227 people were wounded in the clashes, the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Mir Khuda Bakhsh Marri, a clan elder of the Marri tribe, rejected the government’s claim that military action had been taken against fugitive camps in Kohlu area.

Mr Marri insisted that the tribesmen were merely trying to defend themselves against the armed assault launched by the security forces.

He said the motive of the attack was to capture the oil and gas resources of the area. In order to protect the rights and resources of the Marri tribe in the area, he said, tribesmen were rallying behind their leader, Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri

Mr Marri alleged that bombings carried out by helicopter gunships and other aircraft had killed some 150 people and injured more than 200 others in Kohlu since clashes erupted there last month.

He called upon the United Nations and international human rights organizations to take notice of the barbaric acts committed by security forces in the province. He said that security forces had arrested hundreds of Marri tribesmen.

He appealed for an immediate halt to the military operation in Balochistan and the release of all detained tribesmen.

BODYGUARD KILLED: One of the bodyguards of a local chieftain, Sardar Abdur Rehman Khetran, was killed and another wounded in indiscriminate firing late on Saturday night.