Fourteen bus passengers have been shot dead in Pakistan after gunmen ambushed the vehicle in what prime minister Imran Khan has condemned as “an act of terror.” The assailants reportedly boarded the bus and demanded the passengers hand over their identity cards before they were forced out onto the highway and massacred. Local official Jehangir Dashti told the Associated Press it was unclear who was behind the killings, but said “dozens of gunmen” were involved in the attack. “In this tragic incident, 14 passengers were forced off the bus, they were lined up in a nearby open area and killed by the terrorists,” Dashti said. Khan ordered authorities “to make every possible effort to identify and to bring the perpetrators of the barbaric act to justice.” Separatists in the southwestern Baluchistan region, where the attack took place, often target Pakistani security forces and people from the neighboring Punjab province.
