Blast targeting school bus kills four children in Pakistan’s Balochistan

At least four children were killed by a suicide bomber who targeted an army school bus in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, a government official said.

QUETTA, Pakistan — At least four children were killed by a suicide bomber who targeted an army school bus in Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, a government official said Wednesday.

“The bus was on its way to a school in an army cantonment,” said Yasir Iqbal, the administrator of Khuzdar district, where the incident took place.

Around 40 students were in the bus that was headed to the army-run school, Iqbal said, adding that several were injured in the incident.

Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area, but smallest by population. The province of some 15 million people in the southwest of the country is home to key mining projects but has been roiled by a decades-old insurgency.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, which was reminiscent of one of the deadliest militant attacks in Pakistan’s history when an attack on a military school in the northern city of Peshawar in 2014 killed more than 130 children.