Three heavily armed terrorists from the Islamic State – Khorasan Province open fire on and eventually suicide bomb a police training centre in Balochistan, Pakistan, killing at least 59 cadets and injuring more than 165 others.

The Islamic State – Khorasan Province is a regional branch of the Salafi jihadist group Islamic State (IS) active in Central and South Asia, primarily Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. ISIS–K seeks to destabilize and replace current governments within the historic Khorasan region with the goal of establishing a caliphate, governed under a strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law, which they plan to expand beyond the region.

On 24 October 2016, three heavily armed terrorists carried out an attack on the Balochistan police training college in Quetta, Pakistan, killing 61 cadets and injuring more than 165 others. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province claimed responsibility for the attack, and Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed to have collaborated with them. According to Pakistani authorities, the assailants came from Afghanistan and were in contact with their handlers there while perpetrating the attack.

Balochistan, also spelled as Baluchistan or Baluchestan, is a historical region in West and South Asia, located in the Iranian plateau's far southeast and bordering the Indian Plate and the Arabian Sea coastline. This arid region of desert and mountains is primarily populated by ethnic Baloch people.

Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the second-largest Muslim population as of 2023. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and financial centre. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest country by area. Bounded by the Arabian Sea on the south, the Gulf of Oman on the southwest, and the Sir Creek on the southeast, it shares land borders with India to the east; Afghanistan to the west; Iran to the southwest; and China to the northeast. It shares a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor.