A bid to ‘sabotage prosperity’ of Pak

An attack on a luxury hotel in the southwestern city of Gwadar was a bid to "sabotage prosperity", Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan said yesterday, as police confirmed all the attackers had been killed.

At least five persons were shot dead Saturday after gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the southwestern Pakistani city of Gwadar, the centrepiece of a multi-billion dollar Chinese infrastructure project.

During the attack "5 individuals got Shaheed (martyred) including 4 hotel employees and a Pakistan Navy soldier," the military said in a statement. One of the hotel staff killed was a security guard shot at the entrance.

A Baloch separatist group, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility for the attack via Twitter.

"Such attempts especially in Balochistan are an effort to sabotage our economic projects and prosperity. We shall not allow these agendas to succeed," Khan said in a statement issued by his office.

The Chinese embassy in Islamabad also strongly condemned the incident.

Local police said four gunmen who had stormed the hotel, shooting dead a security guard, had been killed overnight by security forces.

"All four terrorists were killed and security forces had taken complete control of the hotel building," a local police official in Gwadar told AFP via telephone.

Mohammad Aslam, a police official in Gwadar, told AFP Saturday that only staff were present in the building at the time of the attack.