Police in southwestern Pakistan said Saturday that at least four people were killed and dozens more were injured when a bomb explosion targeted both civilian and security forces vehicles.
The deadly attack occurred in the city of Turbat in the sparsely populated Balochistan province, which is well-known for its abundant natural resources. Most of the victims were reportedly members of the Frontier Corps paramilitary force. The FC protects Pakistan's borders and handles counterinsurgency operations.
Rabia Tariq, a spokesperson for the provincial police, confirmed the casualty toll to the English-language DAWN newspaper.
Witness accounts and footage from the scene showed a convoy of vehicles traversing the city when an explosion erupted, engulfing one vehicle in flames.
An area police officer, Roshan Baloch, told VOA by phone that an explosive device was concealed within a car parked on the roadside and detonated remotely. He said that several of the wounded people were transferred to a local hospital in critical condition.
The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist organization, swiftly claimed responsibility for the attack, asserting that one of its suicide bombers was the perpetrator. The veracity of the claim could not be ascertained immediately.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bombing and expressed his condolences to the families of those "martyred in the bomb explosion," his office said in a statement in Islamabad, the national capital.
Balochistan, the largest province in Pakistan, has regularly experienced attacks claimed by or blamed on the BLA and several smaller ethnic Baloch separatist groups. The insurgents justify their violent campaign, saying they are fighting for the independence of the province from Pakistan.
Separately, authorities in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province reported a gun attack on a government convoy en route to the besieged Kurram district on the Afghan border. The district deputy commissioner was among at least four individuals injured in the attack.
The victims were on their way to oversee the distribution of essential supplies, including food, fuel, and medicine, to hundreds of thousands of residents of Kurram, which has been the scene of months of violent clashes between its heavily armed Shiite and Sunni Muslim tribes in connection with a land dispute.
The violence has left hundreds of people dead and injured in recent months. The latest clashes between the rival groups prompted the provincial government to close all roads leading in and out of Kurram for weeks.
A peace deal brokered between the warring sides earlier in the week had raised hopes of sending essential supplies into the district, but Saturday's gun attack forced authorities to halt the aid convoy. There were no claims of responsibility for the shooting incident.
Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, both bordering Afghanistan, have experienced a dramatic surge in militant attacks over the past year, killing more than 1,600 Pakistani civilians and security forces.
