Who are Pakistan's ethnic militants fighting for secession?

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Separatist militants launched several coordinated attacks in Pakistan's province of Balochistan, killing at least 39 people, officials said on Monday, in the most widespread assault by ethnic insurgents for years.

Here are some facts on the group, Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which claimed responsibility for the attacks and has specifically targeted Chinese interests in the past.

WHAT ARE THE BLA'S GOALS AND TARGETS?

The BLA seeks independence for Balochistan, located in Pakistan's southwest and bordering on Afghanistan and Iran.

It is the biggest of several ethnic insurgent groups that have battled the central government for decades, saying it unfairly exploits Balochistan's rich gas and mineral resources.

The province is home to key mining projects, including Reko Diq, run by mining giant Barrick Gold and believed to be one of the world's largest gold and copper mines. China also operates a gold and copper mine in the province.

The BLA often targets key infrastructure projects and security posts in Balochistan, but has also launched attacks in other areas - most notably in the southern metropolis of Karachi where it hit Pakistan's stock exchange building.

It specifically targets Chinese interests - in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad exploit the province. It has killed Chinese citizens working in the region and attacked Beijing's consulate in Karachi.

The BLA showed its muscle when it audaciously stormed army bases in 2022 and then a navy base later that year.

Expanding its traditional use of guerrilla gunmen, it has also recently begun using women suicide bombers, seen in an attack on Chinese nationals on a university campus in Karachi.

The group has since targeted both military and Chinese officials, including launching an attack on Gwadar in March.

The BLA was at the centre of tit-for-tat strikes earlier this year between Iran and Pakistan over what they called militant bases on each other's territory, which brought the two neighbours close to war.

Islamabad says it has struck BLA bases inside Iranian territory from where the militants plotted attacks in Pakistan.

THE INSURGENCY'S SIGNIFICANCE

The decades-old insurgency has continued to keep the mineral rich province of some 15 million people unstable and created security concerns around Pakistan's plans to access untapped resources under Balochistan's desert and mountainous terrain.

It is Pakistan's largest province by size, but the smallest by population and strategically located, bordering Iran to the west and Afghanistan to the north. Balochistan also has a long Arabian Sea coastline in the south, not far from the Gulf's Strait of Hormuz oil shipping lane.

Hundreds of Balochs, many of them women, have protested in the Pakistani capital Islamabad and in Balochistan recently over alleged abuses by security forces, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings - accusations the Pakistani government denies.

Balochistan is an important part of China's $65 billion investment in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a wing of President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road initiative.

(Reporting by Asif Shahzad and Gibran Peshimam; editing by Mark Heinrich)