The military said three gunmen killed a guard at the entrance to the hotel when they entered. Security forces had cordoned off the area and cornered the attackers in a staircase leading to the top floor, the military said in a statement
Gwadar is a strategic port on the Arabian Sea being developed as part of the $60 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, which is itself part of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure project.
The hotel, located on a hillside in the port, is used by foreign guests, many of them Chinese project staff, but there were none in the building at the time of the attack, Langove said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Pakistani officials have said the security forces were on alert for attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began in early May.
Security across most of Pakistan has improved over recent years following a major crackdown after the country’s worst attack, when some 150 people, most of them children, were killed in an attack on a school in the western city of Peshawar.
But Balochistan, the largest and poorest province, remains an exception and there have been several attacks this year.
The province is rife with ethnic, sectarian and separatist insurgencies, with several terrorist groups, including the Pakistani Taliban group Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Balochistan Liberation Army and the Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
