BLF: "We consider the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as an occupation of Baluch territory"

"We consider the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor as ... an occupation of Baluch territory," said rebel spokesman Miran Baluch, a member of the Baluchistan Liberation Front (BLF), to Reuters adding its fighters would attack anyone working on the project.

"Thousands of Baluch families have been forced to flee the area where the CPEC route is planned. (The) Baluch (people) will not tolerate such projects on their land."

The low-level insurgency has hit development in the province for decades. In recent violence, five soldiers were killed by a remote-controlled bomb some 50km (31 miles) east of Quetta last month.

Also in January, two coastguards died in a bomb blast in Gwadar district, although in both cases it was not possible to determine who was behind the attacks.

Militant, insurgent groups carried out 625 attacks across Pakistan in 2015, down 48 percent from 2014, said an independent think-tank, the Pak Institute for Peace Studies.

Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said progress so far on the corridor was "generally speaking, quite smooth".