...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
province, the Frontier Corps paramilitary force said.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Pak troops and marked the highest number of military dead in a single incident since March when friendly fire killed 13 soldiers on the northwestern border with Afghanistan.
Up to four dozen rebels struck before dawn in the Musa Khel district, 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of the scenic provincial capital Quetta in one of the most troubled and deprived parts of Pakistain, bordering Afghanistan and Iran.
The military said the troops were guarding a private coal mine and blamed the attack on Baloch rebels, who rose up in 2004 to demand political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the province's wealth of natural resources.
"Fourteen paramilitary personnel, including a major, were killed and several others were maimed. Baloch cut-throats were involved," the front man told AFP.
Security officials said the rebels were armed with automatic weapons and that most of the soldiers died from gunshot wounds in the remote area.
The wilds of Balochistan, virtually a no-go area for journalists, is deeply troubled not only by local insurgency, but militancy and a rising number of sectarian attacks on minority Shia Moslems.
The province straddles a key NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants...
supply route into neighbouring Afghanistan and on Sunday gunnies torched three trucks carrying supplies to US-led troops.
The federal government, elected in February 2008, has struggled to implement reforms and inject more money in order to appease Baloch nationalists.
Security officials said Musa Khel, which is dominated by ethnic Pashtuns and borders the Baloch-dominated district of Kohlu, had seen several private coal mines closed due to local tribal disputes.
Troops intervened to resolve those disputes. The coal mines were inaugurated by army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani
... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI...
in August and work began with the military providing protection, the officials said.
But Baloch separatist rebels oppose the military presence and there have been a string of attacks on troops in the area.
The scene of Monday's attack was not far from Sui town, where two other soldiers were killed in a bombing on Saturday.
Last month, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani
... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ...
said the government planned to create 20,000 jobs in Balochistan, admitting that past neglect of the region had fuelled its troubles.
He announced a six percent employment quota in some federal government departments and the introduction of 3,000 jobs in tribal police for Balochistan residents.
But previous attempts at regional reform have failed to raise the sparsely populated area from poverty and conflict.
In November 2009, the government announced a package of reforms, including an increase in the provincial budget as well as constitutional, administrative, political and economic reforms in a bid to grant Balochistan more independence.
But there is dispute over how much of the deal ever came to fruition.
Hundreds of people have died since Baloch bully boyz rose up in 2004 demanding autonomy and a greater share of the profits from natural resources in the mineral-rich province.
Disappearances and the discovery of bullet-riddled and tortured bodies in the province that the families of victims blame on security and intelligence forces have led human rights
...which often include carefully measured allowances of
freedomat the convenience of the state...
activists to call for investigations into the killings.