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Bomb kills Pakistan oil workers in Baluchistan

A bomb attack today killed at least two Pakistani oil workers in a remote town in the country's troubled southwest that borders Afghanistan and Iran, police and doctors said.

Updated on: Jul 22, 2011, 08:00:37 IST
AFP | By , Quetta
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A bomb attack on Thursday killed at least two Pakistani oil workers in a remote town in the country's troubled southwest that borders Afghanistan and Iran, police and doctors said.

The blast hit a convoy of Pakistan's government-run Oil and Gas Development Company (OGDCL) in the mineral rich province of Baluchistan, where rebels are fighting for autonomy and a greater share of natural resources.

"We received two dead bodies and seven injured from the blast site," Siddiq Ahmed, a doctor told AFP by telephone from the local district hospital in the town of Jafarabad, where the attack took place.

Police said the bomb was fixed to a motorbike and parked on the roadside about 170 miles (272 kilometres) southeast of the provincial capital Quetta.

"It was a remote-controlled device which hit the oil and gas officials' vehicle," Mohammed Tariq, a senior police official, told AFP.

Baluchistan has a history of sectarian violence between majority Sunnis and minority Shiite Muslims and a separatist insurgency.

Baluch rebels rose up in 2004 demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's wealth of natural resources. Hundreds of people have since died.

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