Pakistan Balochistan blasts kill at least 11 in latest militant attacks

Separate blasts in Balochistan killed at least 11 people, including three troops and six labourers. Photo / Getty Images

Separate blasts in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province killed at least 11 people, officials said on Friday.

Militancy has been rising in mineral-rich Balochistan, which sits on the border with Afghanistan and Iran, and it has been met with a sweeping counter-terrorism crackdown.

A suicide bomber drove an explosive-laden car into a convoy of paramilitary soldiers in Dasht, on Pakistan’s southwestern tip near Iran, on Thursday.

Two local government officials told AFP that three troops were among five people killed. The attack was claimed by separatist group the Baloch Liberation Army.

Another blast near an Afghan border crossing in the province killed six labourers on Thursday night, local government official Imtiaz Ali Baloch told AFP.

Separatists have been fighting a decade-long insurgency against the Pakistan military with the aim of ending discrimination against the Baloch people.

Human rights groups say the crackdown has included rights abuses such as arbitrary detentions and arrests of local people.

Fifteen people were killed this month in a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State group at a political rally in the provincial capital Quetta.

– Agence France-Presse