Summary FC personnel were escorting pilgrims bus.
QUETTA (Web Desk) - A car bomb hit a paramilitary van escorting a bus of shia pilgrims in southwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing two soldiers.
The incident took place in Dringhar area, on the main Quetta-Taftan Highway in Mastung district, some 50 kilometres (30 miles) southwest of Quetta, the capital of insurgency-hit Balochistan province, which suffers regular violence from militants and separatist rebels.
"The bomb exploded after an FC (Paramilitary Frontier Corps) vehicle stopped to check a parked car," Sayed Mehrab Shah, a senior government official in Mastung told AFP.
All the pilgrims on the bus, who were on their way to Iran, were safe but several security personnel were wounded by the remotely triggered bomb, Shah said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast but most attacks in the oil-and gas-rich province bordering Afghanistan and Iran have been linked to a decade-long Baluch separatist insurgency or sectarian violence.
Abdul Wasay, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps confirmed the attack and told AFP that rescue teams had been despatched to the area.
Balochistan is rife with militancy and home to a regional insurgency which began in 2004, whereas, similar incidents have happened in the area before.
On December 30, 2012, at least people were killed when a remotely-triggered bomb hit a convoy of three buses carrying about 180 pilgrims to Iran and set one of the buses ablaze in Mastung district.
No group has claimed responsibility of the incident as yet.
