Pakistan: 3 officers killed in blast in Quetta

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan ( AA) - At least three police officers, including a senior official, were killed in a suspected suicide blast in the southeastern city of Quetta on Thursday morning, police and local media reported.

The suspected suicide bomber, according to local broadcaster Express News, detonated himself near the convoy of Hamid Shakil, a police deputy inspector general, minutes after he left his residence for his office. Shakil and two guards were killed on the spot. Five other officers and two civilians were also injured, according to media reports.

Live footage aired on private news channel Express News showed burnt wreckage of vehicles in the middle of the road with blood-soaked pieces of police uniform scattered around the area.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but outlawed sectarian outfits, mainly Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, have been involved in a number of suicide attacks in the recent past.

Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Balochistan province -- a key route of the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) -- has been a hotbed of violence where, apart from sectarian outfits, secular Baloch separatists have been active.

The separatists have been fighting for "liberation" of the mineral-rich province, which according to them was forcibly incorporated into Pakistan in 1947 following the end of British colonial rule in united India.

The insurgency, however, has weakened in recent years with several key leaders joining mainstream politics.