QUETTA: At least three paramilitary guards were killed today when a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up in Quetta, southwestern Pakistan, police said.
The bomber targeted Frontier Constabulary guards in the Mian Ghundi neighbourhood of the city – close to the Afghanistan border – where Hazara Shiite merchants were trading vegetables.
Azhar Akram, a deputy inspector general of police, told AFP that 20 people were injured in the blast, including civilians.
A spokesman for the police’s Counter-Terrorism Department confirmed the toll.
Shiite Muslims have been frequently targeted in restive Balochistan by radical Sunni Islamist groups, who consider them a heretical sect.
Frontier guards have also been targeted by Baloch insurgents, who have been waging a simmering insurgency for greater autonomy.