Pair of bombings hours apart kill 8, wound 23 in southwest Pakistan

Security personnel inspect the blast site near a girls' school targeting police guarding polio vaccinators in the city of Mastung in Balochistan province on November 1, 2024. (AFP/ file)
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Updated 18 September 2025
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Pair of bombings hours apart kill 8, wound 23 in southwest Pakistan

  • Two security personnel were killed, 23 injured in first attack in southwestern Turbat district, say police
  • Hours later, another car bomb exploded near Afghan border in southwestern city of Chaman, killing six

QUETTA, Pakistan: A pair of car bombings hours apart in Pakistan’s insurgency-hit southwest killed at least eight people and wounded about two dozen others on Thursday, officials said.

The first attack occurred in Turbat, a district in Balochistan province, when a suicide bomber rammed a vehicle into a security convoy, police official Elahi Bakhsh said. Two security personnel were killed, and 23 others were wounded in the attack, he said.

Hours later, another car bomb exploded near the Afghan border in the southwestern city of Chaman, killing six people, said government administrator Imtiaz Ali.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The latest attack came two weeks after a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a stadium as supporters of a nationalist party were leaving a rally near Quetta city, killing 13 people.

Pakistan has seen a surge in militant violence in recent years, with most attacks claimed by the Pakistani Taliban, who are known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. 

The outlawed Baloch Liberation Army and other separatist groups also often stage attacks in Balochistan. The province has long been the scene of a insurgency, with separatists demanding independence from the central government.


Pakistan arrests suspect arriving from Cambodia amid crackdown on human smuggling

Updated 14 December 2025
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Pakistan arrests suspect arriving from Cambodia amid crackdown on human smuggling

  • Suspect worked at an “online fraud company” in Cambodia, later started smuggling people from Pakistan, says FIA
  • Pakistan has intensified crackdown against human smugglers after hundreds of migrants drowned near Pylos in 2023

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Sunday said it had arrested a key suspect involved in smuggling humans who had arrived from Cambodia, alleging he was also part of an international fraud network. 

The suspect, identified as Zainullah, was arrested by FIA officials when he arrived in the southern port city of Karachi from Cambodia. 

Zainullah had traveled from Pakistan to Cambodia in September 2024, a press release issued by the agency said. 

“He worked at an online fraud company in Cambodia and later became involved as an agent in recruiting individuals from Pakistan,” the FIA said. 

The FIA said it recovered images of multiple individuals’ passports, payment receipts and bank transaction records after extracting data from Zainullah’s phone. 

It said the suspect received money through personal bank accounts and a cryptocurrency account.

“The suspect has been handed over to the FIA Anti-Human Trafficking Circle, Karachi, for further legal proceedings,” the FIA said. 

“Further investigation is underway.”

Pakistan intensified action against illegal migration in 2023 after hundreds of migrants, including 262 Pakistanis, drowned when an overcrowded vessel sank off the Greek town of Pylos, one of the deadliest boat disasters in the Mediterranean. 

Authorities say they continue to target networks sending citizens abroad through dangerous routes, following heightened scrutiny at airports and a series of arrests involving forged documents.

Pakistan’s interior ministry said this week illegal migration to Europe has declined by 47 percent this year after its nationwide crackdown, saying that more than 1,700 human smugglers have been arrested in 2025.