Roadside bomb kills multiple mine workers in Pakistan's south

A bomb targeting a vehicle carrying coal miners in southwestern Pakistan killed at least 11 people and wounded six others, local officials said on Friday.

The truck had brought the workers to a mine in the Harnai area of Balochistan province, where Pakistan is battling a separatist insurgency.

"An improvised explosive device was planted at the roadside which exploded when truck carting coal miners reached the site," a military official said.

The official, who declined to be identified, added that it may have been a remote-operated device.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. But the proscribed terrorist group Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has carried out similar attacks in the past to target migrant workers from other parts of the country.

The region's deputy commissioner, Hazrat Wali Agha, said 17 miners were in the truck when the bomb went off.

A doctor at the local hospital said two of the wounded are in critical condition.

Mineral-rich Balochistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan, has been the scene of a decade-old insurgency by separatist ethnic Baloch groups. Other terrorist groups are also operating in the area.

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Source: TRT