Gunmen kill 21 miners in an attack in southwest Pakistan ahead of an Asian security summit

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen killed 21 miners and wounded six others in Pakistan’s southwest, a police official said Friday, drawing condemnation from authorities as a search was launched for the assailants.

The latest attack in restive Balochistan province came days ahead of a major security summit being hosted in the capital.

The gunmen stormed the accommodation at a coal mine in Duki district late Thursday night, rounded up the men and opened fire, police official Hamayun Khan Nasir said. He said the attackers also fired rockets, lobbed grenades at the mine and damaged machinery before fleeing.

Most of the casualties were from Pashto-speaking areas of Balochistan. Three of the dead and four of the wounded were Afghan. Angered over the violence, local shop owners pulled their shutters down to observe a daylong strike against the killings.

One of the critically wounded miners died later at a hospital, increasing the death toll to 21, Nasir said. However, he said the families of the slain miners for hours refused to bury them and staged a sit-in at the site of the attack in Duki.

Under Islamic tradition, burials take place as quickly as possible after death, but the demonstrators before ending the protest insisted they would not hold funerals until authorities arrest the killers, Nasir said.

No group claimed immediate responsibility for the attack, but suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Baloch Liberation Army, which targets civilians and security forces.

The province is home to several separatist groups who want independence. They accuse the federal government in Islamabad of unfairly exploiting oil- and mineral-rich Balochistan at the expense of locals.

Foreign investors, many from China, have pumped billions of dollars in investment into Balochistan, but the separatists say few of the profits from development reach the local area.

The BLA launched multiple attacks in August that killed more than 50. They included 23 people, mostly from eastern Punjab province, who were fatally shot after being taken from buses, vehicles and trucks in Musakhail district in Balochistan. Authorities responded by killing 21 insurgents in the province.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his deep sorrow over the coal mine killings and vowed to eliminate terrorism.

Sarfraz Bugti, the chief minister in Balochistan, said “terrorists have once again targeted poor laborers." He said the attackers were cruel and had an agenda to destabilize Pakistan. “The killing of these innocent laborers will be avenged,” he said in a statement.

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said those who killed the laborers would not be able to escape the grip of the law.

On Monday, the BLA said it carried out an attack on Chinese nationals outside Pakistan's biggest airport. The bodies of the two slain Chinese engineers were sent to Beijing by a plane Thursday night, according to security officials.

There are thousands of Chinese working in the country, most of them involved in Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative.

Two suspects linked to a 2021 bombing that killed nine Chinese nationals and four Pakistanis working on a dam in the northwest were killed Friday in eastern Pakistan, counterterrorism police said.

Police said the suspects died when armed men attacked a van transporting the suspects to a prison in Sahiwal, a district in Punjab province. No officer was harmed in the shootout, the statement from counterterrorism police said.

Sunday's airport explosion, which the BLA said was the work of a suicide bomber, has raised questions about the ability of Pakistani forces to protect high-profile events or foreigners in the country.

Islamabad is hosting a summit next week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a grouping founded by China and Russia to counter Western alliances.

Authorities have increased security in the capital by deploying troops.

The Interior Ministry this week alerted provinces to take additional measures as separatists and the Pakistani Taliban could attack public places and government installations.

The killings of the miners came hours after Saudi and Pakistani businessmen signed 27 investment agreements valued at $2 billion across various sectors, including mining in Balochistan.

Saudi Arabia also wants to invest in Reko Diq, a district in Balochistan famed for its mineral wealth, including gold and copper.

Balochistan’s Gwadar Port is an anchor in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative. The BLA has asked the Chinese workers to leave the province to avoid attacks.

Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this story from Islamabad.

An injured man receives treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024, following Thursday attack by gunmen in Balochistan province. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Injured men receive treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024, following Thursday attack by gunmen in Balochistan province. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

An injured man receives treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024, following Thursday night's attack by gunmen in Balochistan province. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Injured men receive treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024, following Thursday attack by gunmen in Balochistan province. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

Injured men receive treatment at a hospital in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024, following Thursday attack by gunmen in Balochistan province. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

The path for the NFL's Washington Commanders to return to the nation’s capital is clear after an on-again, off-again saga in Congress ended early Saturday with a postmidnight reprieve.

The U.S. Senate passed a resolution to transfer the land including old RFK Stadium from the federal government to the District of Columbia. The D.C. Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium Campus Revitalization Act passed by voice vote at roughly 1:15 a.m. after more than a year of lobbying and support from Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., district Mayor Muriel Bowser, Commanders controlling owner Josh Harris and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

“We are extremely grateful that our elected officials have come together on a bipartisan basis to give Washington, D.C., the opportunity to decide on the future of the RFK Stadium site," Harris said. "This bill will create an equal playing field so that all potential future locations for the home of the Washington Commanders can be fairly considered and give our franchise the opportunity to provide the best experience for all of our fans.”

The RFK Stadium land provision was part of Congress’ initial short-term spending bill Tuesday before it was torpedoed by President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the latter of whom amplified misinformation about the site on his social media platform X. Two versions of the House's slimmed-down bill, including the one that passed Friday night to avoid a government shutdown, did not include it.

Giving the local government control of the land for the next 99 years allows for the decaying husk of the old stadium to be torn down and the site redeveloped for any number of things. One of the possibilities is a football stadium and surrounding entertainment options at the franchise's former home.

Bowser called it “a win for D.C., for our region and for America.”

“Everybody loves a good comeback story — and that’s D.C.’s story,” she said.

All that awaits is President Joe Biden's signature to become law. Comer went as far as saying that Senate passage of the bill is “a historic moment for our nation's capital.”

“If Congress failed to act today, this decaying land in Washington would continue to cost taxpayers a fortune to maintain,” he said. “Revitalizing this RFK Memorial Stadium site has been a top economic priority for the city, and I am proud to have partnered with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to get this bill across the finish line and to the president’s desk. This bipartisan success is a testament to the House Oversight Committee’s unwavering effort to protect taxpayers and our full commitment to ensuring a capital that is prosperous for residents and visitors for generations to come.”

Playing in Washington again is no sure thing. The Commanders are considering places in the district, Maryland and Virginia to build a stadium in the coming years.

Their lease at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, runs through 2027. Harris called 2030 a “reasonable target” for a new stadium.

The team played at RFK Stadium 2 miles (3.22 kilometers) east of the Capitol from 1961-96 before moving to Maryland. Harris and several co-owners, including Mitch Rales and Mark Ein, grew up as Washington football fans during that era, which included the glory days of three Super Bowl championships from 1982-91.

Part of the way the provision got into the bill initially involved an agreement between the team and Maryland to tear down the current stadium in a timely fashion and redevelop the site with a project of equal economic impact, a person with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press earlier this week on condition of anonymity because the deal was not being publicized.

After the Senate greenlit the RFK Stadium land transfer, Maryland Sens. Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen, both Democrats, said they continued to believe their state's partnership with the team should continue long into the future.

“After working to level the financial playing field, and receiving assurances that should the team move they will redevelop the existing site in a manner that meets the needs of the community, tonight we supported the proposed land transfer legislation,” Cardin and Van Hollen said. "We have always supported the District’s effort to control its own land, and through regional discussions and cooperation, our concerns with this proposal have been addressed.”

The team has played games in Maryland since 1997 and practices in Ashburn, Virginia, not far from Dulles International Airport.

A return to the district would be another victory for Bowser, who on Thursday celebrated the start of an $800 million downtown arena renovation that is keeping the NBA's Wizards and NHL's Capitals in town. At that news conference, she took aim at Musk for sharing incorrect information on X, formerly Twitter, about taxpayers footing the bill for a new stadium.

“It was stated that the (continuing resolution) contains $3 billion for a stadium,” Bowser said. "All wrong. There are no federal dollars related to the transfer of RFK, and in fact the legislation does not require or link at all to a stadium. We’re talking about how the District can invest in removing blight.”

Musk reshared an inaccurate post saying: “Buried in the 1,547-page omnibus bill is a provision to facilitate a $3 billion NFL stadium in Washington, D.C." with the message, “This should not be funded by your tax dollars!”

The bill specifically prohibits the use of federal funds for a stadium on the site, “including training facilities, offices, and other structures necessary to support a stadium.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

FILE - A vehicle pushes up pikes of snow after trucks dump their loads of snow in the parking lots of RFK Stadium in Washington, Monday, Jan. 25, 2016. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)