Pakistan: Baluchistan insurgency grows

From Reuters:

QUETTA, Pakistan, March 23 - A bomb blew up a telephone call office in Pakistan's troubled Baluchistan province on Thursday, killing the owner and wounding eight other people, police said.

A police official, who did not want to be identified, said tribal militants seeking greater provincial autonomy had planted a time-bomb in a shop housing the call office in Kohlu town in the southeast of the province.

The incident was the latest in a wave of rebel attacks in the southwestern province bordering Afghanistan and Iran. On Tuesday, a gas pipeline was blown up, while a landmine blast wounded four troops.

Baluch militants have waged a low-level insurgency for decades and have intensified attacks on government installations and infrastructure facilities, including pipelines and transport links, in recent months.

See our last posts on Pakistan and the Baluch insurgency.