At least three armed militants have stormed a luxury hotel in Pakistan and exchanged fire with government forces.
Local media said the fighters stormed the Pearl Continental hotel in Gwadar just before 5pm local time on Saturday. Firing was still ongoing at 8pm, the assistant superintendent of police in the city said. Security personnel cordoned off the area around the hotel.
A spokesman for Pakistan’s military said a hotel security guard had been killed.
“All four of the terrorists have been killed,” said a senior security official told the Associated Press. Security forces cornered the attackers in a staircase during the hours-long gunfight, the military said in its statement.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed on Twitter by members of the Majeed Brigade of the Balochistan Liberation Organisation, a separatist group active in Pakistan and Afghanistan. “Our fighters have carried out this attack on Chinese and other foreign investors,” the group said.
The same group claimed responsibility for an attack on the Chinese embassy in Karachi in November last year and another assault on Chinese engineers in the Baloch district of Chagai.
Gwadar, a small city in Balochistan province, is the site of a large port under construction by a Chinese company as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a centrepiece project of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure-building spree.
Beijing has invested about $50bn (£38bn) in the port and in road links between Gwadar and China’s western Xinjiang province.
The city of Gwadar, including its major hotels, is heavily guarded by the Pakistan army and paramilitary forces.
Balochistan province is Pakistan’s poorest and most restive. Baloch separatists killed at least 11 members of the military in an attack in April.
The Majeed Brigade was formed to carry out attacks against Chinese targets. Its founder, Aslam Baloch, was killed in a blast in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December last year along with five other members of the militant group.