Gunmen armed with grenades attacked the Pakistan Stock Exchange in the city of Karachi on Monday in a bid to take hostages, killing two guards and a policeman before security forces killed all four of the attackers, security officials said.

But at the moment we have to collect evidence to establish the supporters.”

An aide to Pakistan’s prime minister on national security matters, Moeed Yusuf, and the country’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, both said the attack was sponsored by hostile foreign elements.

Nuclear-armed foes India and Pakistan often trade accusations of being behind cross-border attacks. Pakistan has regularly blamed India for supporting Baloch separatists.

The BLA claimed responsibility in a brief message on a Twitter account set up shortly before the raid, describing it as a “self-sacrificing” attack carried out by its Majeed brigade.

The account was suspended a short time after the attack.

Separatists have been fighting for years in resource-rich Balochistan, complaining its gas and mineral wealth is unfairly exploited by Pakistan’s richer, more powerful provinces.

The BLA’s Majeed brigade also took responsibility for an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in 2018. Several projects linked to China’s Belt and Road initiative are in Balochistan.

This month, three explosions on the same day claimed by a little-known separatist group killed four people including two soldiers in the southern province of Sindh, of which Karachi is the capital.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange PAKS.PSX did not suspend trading during the attack. Its main KSE-100 index dropped 220 points briefly but later recovered and closed the day 242 points (0.7%) higher.

Islamist militants have also launched attacks in Karachi and elsewhere in Pakistan over the years but their violence has become less frequent after military operations against various factions in strongholds on the Afghan border.

Reuters