By Aamir Latif
QUETTA, Pakistan
Thirteen people were killed and 50 others were injured in three separate attacks in southwestern Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province Thursday, police said.
A senior Pakistani politician narrowly escaped a suicide attack in Quetta city Thursday evening that killed two people, including the bomber and left 30 others injured.
Quetta is the provincial capital of Pakistan’s largest province Balochistan.
Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, who heads a mainstream religious-political party, was in his bullet-proof vehicle when the bomber struck.
Rehman had addressed a public rally only a few moments before the attack. Balochistan police chief Amlaish Khan said the bomber had tried to cling to the politician’s vehicle, but was prevented by the party workers in time.
"I don’t know why I am being targeted. Maybe it is because I raise my voice against the United States or because I am for democracy," Rehman told the media after the blast.
The senior politician has come under attack in the past as well, including an attack by the Pakistani Taliban in 2008.
In a separate attack, eight people were killed and five others were injured when gunmen opened fire on a bus in a suspected sectarian attack early morning in Quetta city.
The bus passengers belonged to the minority Shia-Hazara community, who were on their way to a local vegetable market in Hazar Ganji area, when terrorists riding motorbikes opened fire on the bus, Imran Qureshi, Quetta police chief, said.
Although no group claimed responsibility for the attack, security officials have blamed the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi for being involved in previous attacks on the community.
In a separate attack in the afternoon, three people were killed and 15 others were injured in a roadside blast on a security convoy in Quetta’s Qambrani road, police said.
Qureshi said the bomb was planted in a motorbike along the road, which was detonated remotely when the convoy passed by.
The injured included two security personnel, while the dead and other injured persons were all civilians, he added. Security forces suspect the Baloch separatist militant groups to be behind the blast.
Pakistan has a long deadly history of sectarian violence in which thousands of people have been killed in the last three decades across the country.
The Shia Hazara community has borne the brunt of the sectarian attacks in Balochistan province. Hundreds have been killed and scores have been maimed over the last decade in such attacks.
Security forces in Balochistan have also been battling for decades the various armed Baloch separatist groups, who believe the province was forcibly annexed to Pakistan at the time of its independence in 1947.
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