Pakistan says armed men kidnap, kill nine bus passengers in restive province

Authorities retrieved from Pakistan's mountains the bullet-ridden bodies of nine passengers kidnapped by armed men in a spate of bus attacks in the troubled southwestern province of Balochistan, officials said on Friday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Baloch separatists, agitating for a greater share of resources, have figured in similar past killings of those identified as hailing from the eastern province of Punjab.

Government official Naveed Alam said the bodies were found in the mountains overnight, while a provincial government spokesman, Shahid Rind, said the passengers were seized from two buses on Thursday evening.

"We are identifying the bodies and reaching out to their families," he said, adding that the victims, working as labourers in the restive region, were returning home to Punjab.

Ethnic insurgents accuse Pakistan's government of stealing regional resources to fund expenditure elsewhere, mainly in the sprawling province of Punjab.

Security forces foiled three insurgent attacks on Thursday before the kidnappings, Rind said.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) is the strongest among the insurgent groups long operating in the area bordering Afghanistan and Iran.

In recent months, separatists have stepped up their attacks, mostly targeting Pakistan's military, which has launched an intelligence-based offensive against them. The BLA blew up a railway track and took over 400 train passengers hostage in an attack in March that killed 31.