Suicide car bomber targeting school bus kills four children in Pakistan

A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing five people - including at least three children - and wounding 38 others, officials said, the latest attack in tense Balochistan province.

The province has been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA, designated a terror group by the United States in 2019.

A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the attack took place on the outskirts of the city of Khuduzar as the bus was transporting children to their military-run school there.

Troops quickly arrived at the scene and cordoned off the area while ambulances transported the victims to hospitals in the city. Local television stations aired footage of the badly damaged bus and scattered debris.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack but suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in the region.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow over the children’s deaths. He called the perpetrators "beasts” who deserve no leniency, saying the enemy had committed an act of "sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children.”

Officials, who initially reported that four children were killed but later revised the death toll to say two adults were also among the dead, said they fear the toll may rise further as several children were listed in critical condition.

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed his condolences and also blamed India, without providing any evidence to support the claim.

"The attack on a school bus by terrorists backed by India is clear proof of their hostility toward education in Balochistan,” Sharif said, vowing that the government would bring the perpetrators to justice.

Associated Press