QUETTA: A powerful roadside bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying security personnel in Pakistan’s restive southwest on Tuesday, killing three officers and wounding 18 others, officials said.
Separately, gunmen also abducted two polio workers in the northwest.
The first attack occurred in Mastung, a district in the province of Balochistan, according to government spokesperson Shahid Rind.
No group has immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in the province as well as other parts of the country.
Balochistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency in Pakistan, with an array of separatist groups, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army which was designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2019, staging attacks.
The separatists seek independence from the central government in Islamabad.
Although Pakistani authorities say they have quelled the insurgency, violence in Balochistan has persisted.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in a statement, denounced the attack and vowed to continue the “fight against terrorism” until it's eradicated.
Meanwhile, gunmen attacked a vehicle and abducted two polio workers who were on their way home after visiting a health facility in Dera Ismail Khan, a district in restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, according to a local police officer Zahid Khan.
The kidnapping happened ahead of a nationwide anti-polio campaign which will begin April 21 to vaccinate 45 million children.
It wasn’t immediately clear who was behind the abductions but authorities have previously blamed militants for such attacks.
Insurgents falsely claim the vaccination campaigns are a Western conspiracy to sterilize children despite the government and medical experts’ vehement denials.
Pakistan has reported six new cases of polio since January.
According to the World Health Organization, Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan remain the only two countries where the potentially fatal, paralyzing virus has not been eradicated.
