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Reuters

A suicide bombing at a shrine in southwest Pakistan killed 18 people and wounded more than 30 on Thursday in the latest sectarian attack in Balochistan province, authorities said.
Minority Islamic groups in the province are routinely attacked by militant outfits including Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for several bombings.
A police officer apprehended the bomber at the entrance to the Sufi shrine and was among those killed, but his heroic action reduced the number of casualties, Balochistan home minister Sarfraz Bugti said.
Local government official Ahmed Aziz Tarrar said 16 people were killed and over 30 wounded in the blast.

“We have received 16 bodies at the local hospital and many injured. The severely wounded are being moved to other facilities,” district heath official Rukhsani Magsi said.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack via its Amaq news service.
The shrine in the district of Jhal Magsi was packed with devotees mourning the death of a local spiritual leader.
Such incidents fuel concern about security for projects in the US$57 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a planned transport and energy route from western China to Balochistan’s deep-water port of Gwadar.
Taliban faction claims responsibility for suicide bombing in Pakistan that killed 26 and wounded 54
The province has been rocked by violence on two fronts for over a decade. As well as the Taliban and other Sunni Islamist militants, Balochistan separatists mount attacks on targets linked to the central government.
A suicide bomber killed 52 people and wounded over 100 at a Balochistan Sufi shrine in November last year, in an attack claimed by Islamic State. In February, IS attacked a Sufi shrine in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province, killing 83 people.


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Islamic militancy

18 killed in Pakistan suicide bomb attack at religious shrine

People gather at the blast site in southwest Pakistan where scores were killed in a suicide bomb attack. Photo: Xinhua

Pakistani devotees gather around the bodies of blast victims after a suicide bombing near a sufi shrine in the Gandawa area of Jhal Magsi district on October 5, 2017. A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a Sufi shrine in Pakistan's restive southwest on October 5, killing 13 people and wounding at least 20 others, officials said. The incident took place in the Jhal Magsi district of the oil and gas rich Balochistan province, bordering Iran and Afghanistan. / AFP PHOTO / STR / GRAPHIC CONTENT