QUETTA: At least 59 people were killed and 117 critically wounded when gunman stormed a Pakistani police training academy in the southwestern city of Quetta, government officials said on Tuesday.

Some 200 trainees were stationed at the facility when the attack occurred late on Monday, officials said, and some were taken hostage during the attack which lasted five hours.

Most of the dead were police cadets.

Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, home minister of Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is the capital, had confirmed early on Tuesday that five to six gunmen had attacked a dormitory inside the training facility while cadets rested and slept.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but one of the top military commanders in Baluchistan, General Sher Afgun, told media that calls intercepted between the attackers and their handlers suggested they were from the sectarian militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose roots are in the heartland Punjab province, has a history of carrying out sectarian attacks in Baluchistan, particularly against the minority Hazara Shias. It was unclear what motive the group would have in attacking the police academy, a home ministry official said.

Police, military and paramilitary personnel arrived at the training centre within 20 minutes of the attack and launched an operation which last around five hours, the home ministry said.

A Reuters photographer at the scene said authorities carried out the body of a teenaged-boy who they said was one of the attackers and had been shot dead by security forces.

Well-coordinated attack

Monday night's assault was the deadliest in Pakistan since a suicide bomber killed 70 people in an attack on mourners gathered at a hospital in Quetta in August.

The bomber struck as a crowd of mostly lawyers and journalists crammed into the emergency ward of the hospital to accompany the body of a prominent lawyer who had been shot and killed in the city earlier in the day.

Monday night's attack also appeared well coordinated, with senior law enforcement agencies saying that assailants had fired at the police training centre from five different points.

Later, the attackers entered the centre's hostel where around 200 to 250 police recruits were resting, security officials said. At least three explosions were reported at the scene by local media.

Quetta has long been regarded as a base for the Afghan Taliban, whose leadership has regularly held meetings there in the past.

The Afghan Taliban's new leader Haibatullah Akhundzada openly taught and preached at a mosque outside Quetta for 15 years, until May this year. Akhundzada's predecessor Mullah Akhtar Mansour was killed by a U.S. drone strike while travelling to Quetta from the Pakistan-Iran border.

Baluchistan province is no stranger to violence, with separatist fighters launching regular attacks on security forces for nearly a decade and the military striking back..

Militants, particularly sectarian groups, have also launched a campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations of minority Shias.

UPDATED

Pakistani officials say 41 police trainees killed in attack

QUETTA: Gunmen stormed a police training centre Monday in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province and detonated explosive vests, killing at least 41 police trainees, authorities said.

Baluchistan's top health official, Noor Haq Baloch, said at least 106 people were wounded — mostly police trainees and some paramilitary troops.

Major General Sher Afgan, chief of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, told reporters that the attackers appeared to be in contact with handlers in Afghanistan. He said the attacker belonged to the banned Lashker-e-Jhangvi group, an Islamic militant group affiliated with al-Qaida.

Haq said many of the trainees were killed when the gunmen detonated explosive vests.

Baluchistan Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said one of the attackers was killed by security forces and two detonated their explosive vests. He said security forces have completed their operation but were still engaged in the cleanup process.

Bugti said at the time of attack about 700 trainees were at the base. He said more than 200 trainees were rescued immediately after the attack.

In Monday night's attack, between four and six gunmen opened fire as they attacked thehostel at the police training center in a suburban area of the provincial capital of Quetta.

"They were rushing toward our building firing shots so we rushed for safety toward the roof and jumped down in the back to save our lives," one of the police trainees told Geo television.

Baluchistan police chief Ahsan Mahboob told reporters that four gunmen attacked the training center, attempting to enter the hostel housing the trainees. A gun battle erupted when the guards resisted, he said.

Mahboob said police and paramilitary forces surrounded the hostel. A statement issued by the military put the number of attackers at up to six.

Footage shot by local television showed ambulances rushing out of the main entrance of the training center as fire engines sped in to put out fires set off when the gunmen threw incendiary devices.

Most of those being treated at city hospitals had gunshot wounds, although some sustained injuries jumping off the roof of the hostel and climbing a wall to escape the gunmen. Nearly all of the wounded were police; two were paramilitary troops, authorities said.

Local television reported that two explosions were also heard, but it was not immediately clear what caused them.

The attack came hours after gunmen shot and killed two customs officers and wounded a third near the town of Surab, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) south of Quetta.

The customs officers were targeted by gunmen riding a motorcycle, said Zainullah Baloch, a spokesman for the local police. Baloch said two officers died at the scene and the wounded officer was hospitalized in critical condition.

Earlier Monday, two gunmen on a motorcycle killed a police intelligence officer in the country's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said Khalid Khan, a local police officer.

Khan said the attackers fled the scene after killing the officer, who had been on his way to work in the provincial capital of Peshawar.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack. The group's spokesman, Muhammad Khurasani, said in a statement that the shooters returned to their hideout after the attack.

Pakistan has carried out military operations against militants in tribal areas near Afghanistan and in cities across Pakistan, but extremists are still capable of staging regular attacks.