US designates Baloch Liberation Army as terror group

The United States has designated the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which is fighting Pakistani rule in Balochistan province, as a terrorist organisation. 

The US State Department said, BLA is an armed separatist group that targets security forces and civilians, mainly in ethnic Baloch areas of Pakistan. The department has also made it a crime for anyone in the US to assist the BLA terrorists and freezing any US assets they may have.

BLA carried out several terrorist attacks



last year, including a suicide attack in August that targeted Chinese engineers in Balochistan and an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi in November that claimed four lives.

Pakistan has already classified the outfit as a terror organisation and have been urging the US to do the same. 

The US has also sanctioned Hezbollah operative Husain Ali Hazzima, chief of the Beirut-based terrorist group's intelligence unit.