The attack yesterday happened the same day the US state department listed the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) as a foreign terrorist organisation after a string of deadly assaults claimed by the group.

A senior government official of Washuk district, where the assault took place, said dozens of rebels attacked a police station and a border force compound.

“The army was attacked by terrorists on their way to respond. The terrorists killed nine soldiers,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

“There were around 40 to 50 terrorists on motorbikes who attacked government buildings and ransacked them,” said a senior official from the province’s interior department who asked not to be named, confirming to AFP that nine soldiers were killed.

The officials said that six other soldiers were also wounded in the attack.

A senior official from the province’s interior department said the insurgents hurled hand grenades at the Frontier Corps compound in Basima city of Washuk district.

No group has claimed the attack, but the BLA is the most active in the region.

Washington had already listed the BLA under the less severe label of specially designated global terrorists, which targets financial resources, before toughening the ban yesterday.

The new step comes as US President Donald Trump increases contact with Pakistan, which was kept at arm’s length by his predecessor Joe Biden, whose administration resented Islamabad’s role in the two-decade war in Afghanistan.

Baloch separatists and rights groups say the military’s heavy-handed response to the insurgency has included widespread enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings.