At least 11 people were killed late Thursday in two attacks targeting security forces and civilians in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, officials said Friday.
In the first incident, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a civilian bus carrying security personnel in Kech district, near the Iranian border, killing three troops and two civilians, according to a senior local administrator. Another 27 people were injured, 12 of them critically, he added.
In a separate attack, a suicide bomber struck less than a kilometre from the Chaman border terminal linking Balochistan to Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, killing six civilians, said senior official Imtiaz Ali Baloch.
Five workers sheltering near a taxi stand died instantly, while a sixth succumbed to his wounds while being transferred to a hospital in Quetta, the provincial capital, he added.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest but poorest province, witnessed a 90 percent surge in violence in 2024, with 782 deaths recorded, according to the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies.
