Security officials check vehicles after a bomb blast targeted a Frontier Corps vehicle, at Lac pass tunnel in Balochistan province, Pakistan, yesterday.
QUETTA: A car bomb hit a paramilitary van escorting a bus of Shia pilgrims in southwest Pakistan yesterday, killing two soldiers, officials said.
The incident took place in Dringhar area, on the main Quetta-Taftan Highway in Mastung district, some 50km southwest of Quetta, the capital of insurgency-hit Baluchistan province, which suffers regular violence from Islamist insurgents, separatist rebels and sectarian militants.
“The bomb exploded after an FC (Paramilitary Frontier Corps) vehicle stopped to check a parked car,” Sayed Mehrab Shah, a senior government official in Mastung said. All pilgrims on the bus, who were on their way to Iran, were safe but several security personnel were wounded by the remotely triggered bomb, Shah said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but most attacks in the oil-and gas-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran have been linked to a decade-long Baluch separatist insurgency or sectarian violence.
Abdul Wasay, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps confirmed the attack and said that rescue teams had been despatched to the area. AFP
