Gunmen kill 7 bus passengers in southwest Pakistan

Gunmen in volatile southwest Pakistan shot seven bus passengers dead after identifying them as being from another region, officials said Wednesday.

Security forces have been battling sectarian, ethnic and separatist violence for decades in impoverished but mineral-rich Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Attacks on security forces and ethnic groups have sharply increased in the past few years, especially against labourers from Punjab, the country's most populous and prosperous province and also a major recruitment base for the military.

Attackers late on Tuesday burst the tyres of a bus that was travelling through Balochistan along a highway close to the provincial border with Punjab, Saadat Hussain, a senior government official in the area, told AFP.

Gunmen boarded the bus and demanded to see the identity cards of passengers.

"The passengers belonging to Punjab province were taken off by the terrorists and killed," Hussain said.

"They were lined up and shot dead."

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

However, the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) is the most active group in the region, killing six people in a bombing in January.

The separatist militants killed at least 39 people in coordinated attacks last year that largely targeted ethnic Punjabis.