QUETTA, Dec 25: Four personnel of the Frontier Corps were killed and four others injured, two of them seriously, after their vehicle was ambushed, some 100km north of Turbat near Buleda area close to Pakistan-Iran border.

"All the four FC men died on the spot as some unknown attackers hit their vehicle with a rocket," sources said here on Saturday, adding that the tragic incident took place late on Friday night.

The FC troops cordoned off the whole area and launched a massive manhunt following the incident.

The Inspector General, Frontier Corps, Major General Shujjat Zameer Dar arrived in the area and supervised the operation.

According to the sources, a truck and a jeep of the Frontier Corps were on their way back to their base camp after a routine patrol in the Zamiran area close to the Pakistan-Iran border. When they reached near Nag Nullah, a mountainous area, some unidentified armed men launched an attack on them.

Lurking in ambush, the assailants lobbed many rockets and opened indiscriminate fire with automatic weapons. One rocket struck the FC truck, resulting in the killing of four FC personnel and injuries to four more. The gunmen escaped from the area after the incident.

The attack victims were rushed to a Turbat hospital for treatment where four of them were pronounced dead on arrival. Later the injured were shifted to the CMH Quetta aboard a helicopter.

"The condition of one injured is serious," hospital sources said.

"It is too early to say who was behind the attack," Col. Rizwan Malik of the Frontier Corps told Dawn, adding a probe had been launched.

He said that drug smugglers and gunrunners also operate in the border area and they might have a hand in it. The possibility of anti-state elements being involved in the incident could not be ruled out either, he added.

An unknown person calling himself Col. Dada Khan, and speaking from an unspecified location, claimed that the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) had carried out the attack.

"The BLA accepts the responsibility" he told reporters gathered at the Quetta Press Club in the afternoon.

No arrest has so far been made, the sources said.

Those killed in ambush have been identified as Sobedar Aziz Ahmed Baloch, Lance Nike Gul Marjan, Lance Nike Matiur Rehman and soldier Mehmood Khattak. The injured were Saifullah, Samiullah, Ejaz Ahmed and Wali Zaman.