Pakistan’s security forces used drones and helicopters to wrest control of a southwestern town from separatist insurgents after a three-day battle, police said on Wednesday, as the death toll in the weekend’s violence rose to 58, Reuters reported.

Saturday’s wave of coordinated attacks by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army brought Pakistan’s largest province to a near standstill as security forces exchanged fire with insurgents in more than a dozen places, killing 197 militants.

“I thought the roof and walls of my house were going to blow up,” said Robina Ali, a housewife living near the main administrative building in the fortified provincial capital of Quetta, where a powerful morning blast rocked the area.

Fighters of the BLA, the region’s strongest insurgent group, stormed schools, banks, markets and security installations across Balochistan in one of their largest operations ever, killing more than 22 security officials and 36 civilians, read the report.

Police officials gave details of the situation on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

In the desert town of Nushki, home to about 50,000, the insurgents seized control of the police station and other security installations, triggering a three-day standoff.

Police said seven officers were killed in the fighting before they regained control of the town late on Monday, while operations against the BLA continue elsewhere in the province.

“More troops were sent to Nushki,” said one security official. “Helicopters and drones were used against the militants.”

Pakistan’s interior ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Pakistan’s largest and poorest province, mineral-rich Balochistan borders Iran and Afghanistan and is home to Beijing’s investment in the Gwadar deepwater port and other projects.

It has grappled with a decades-long insurgency led by ethnic Baloch separatists seeking greater autonomy and a larger share of its natural resources.

The BLA, which has urged people of the province to support the movement, said on Tuesday it had killed 280 soldiers during its Operation “Herof”, Black Storm, but gave no evidence.

Security officials said the weekend attacks began at 4 a.m. on Saturday with suicide blasts in Nushki and the fishing port of Pasni and gun and grenade attacks in 11 more places, including Quetta.

The insurgents seized at least six district administration offices during the siege and had advanced at one point to within 1 km (3,300 ft) of the provincial chief minister’s office in Quetta, the police officials said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh on Tuesday, marking the first stop of his regional tour, according to Türkiye’s Communications Director Burhanettin Duran.

Erdogan is in Saudi Arabia on an official visit, accompanied by his wife, First Lady Emine Erdogan, as well as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek, Defense Minister Yasar Guler and other senior officials.

No further details were released about the closed-door meeting.

Following the talks, bin Salman hosted a closed-door dinner in honor of the Turkish president at the Yemame Palace. Earlier in the day, Erdogan was welcomed by the crown prince during an official reception.

The Riyadh visit is the first leg of Erdogan’s tour of regional countries.

He is scheduled to travel to Cairo on Wednesday at the invitation of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to co-chair the second meeting of the Türkiye-Egypt High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.

During his visit to Egypt, Erdogan and Sisi are expected to discuss bilateral relations and exchange views on regional and international developments, with a particular focus on the situation in Palestine, Duran said.

The Turkish president is also set to attend a Türkiye-Egypt Business Forum in Cairo.

An explosion that hit a building in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Saturday was caused by a gas leak, according to a preliminary assessment, the local head of the fire department said.

Iranian state media reported that at least two people have been killed and 14 injured in the blast, which comes amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown earlier this month on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear programme.

“This (gas leak) is the preliminary assessment. My colleagues will give more details in the next few hours,” Mohammad Amin Liaqat, the fire department chief, said in a video published by Iran’s semi-official Mehr news agency.

A video published on social media showed people standing among debris and wrecked cars in front of a damaged building following the explosion.

Reuters was able to verify the location by analysing buildings, trees, and road layout, which matched satellite and file imagery. Reuters could not independently verify the date the video was filmed.

Separately, four people were killed after another gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.

The explosions highlighted the jittery mood prevailing in Iran amid its clerical rulers’ standoff with the Trump administration.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on January 22 an “armada” was heading toward Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump was weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.

Ali Larijani, a senior Iranian security official, said on X on Saturday that work on a framework for negotiations with the United States was progressing, downplaying what he described as an “atmosphere created by artificial media warfare.”

Trump told Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich that Iran was “negotiating, so we’ll see what happens,” Heinrich wrote on X.

“You know, the last time they negotiated, we had to take out their nuclear, didn’t work, you know. Then we took it out a different way, and we’ll see what happens,” Heinrich quoted Trump as saying.

Before the reports of the two blasts on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused U.S., Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic problems, inciting unrest and providing people with the means to “tear the nation apart.”

The semi-official Tasnim news agency said social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the Bandar Abbas explosion were “completely false.”

Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman which handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.

The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured over 1,000 people. An investigative committee at the time blamed the blast on shortcomings in adherence to principles of civil defence and security.

Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests that erupted in December over economic hardship and have posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.

U.S.-based rights group HRANA has said at least 6,500 people were killed in the protests, including hundreds of security personnel.