QUETTA, Jan 11: At least 14 personnel of the Frontier Corps died in an ambush by armed men in the Nawano area of Turbat district late on Wednesday night.

The banned Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) claimed responsibility for the attack.

Official sources said the FC men were on duty in two vehicles on a road in the Nawano area, some 200km southwest of Turbat town, when the gunmen, hiding in nearby mountains, attacked them from three sides with rockets and automatic weapons.

The rockets hit the vehicles, resulting in the death of 12 FC soldiers and two non-commissioned officers.

The armed men fired around a dozen rockets. Sources said that the gunmen used heavy automatic weapons.

“They fired rockets from the mountains, then came down and fired bullets from a very close range on the FC personnel,” the sources said.

The armed men escaped after the attack. The sources said that after receiving information about the attack, a heavy contingent of security forces rushed to the site and took the bodies to Turbat.

A BLF spokesman, Gohram Baloch, calling from an unknown place told newsmen that his organisation was behind the attack.—Saleem Shahid