Summary The bus carrying Shia pilgrims was travelling from Iran to the city of Quetta.
QUETTA (Web Desk) - A suicide car bomb attack targeting a passenger bus carrying Shia pilgrims killed three people and wounded at least 17 in southwest Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said.
The attack took place in Akhtarabad town, on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province which borders Iran and Afghanistan.
"An explosive laden car which was parked along the roadside blew up as the bus passed by it" Quetta city police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema told AFP.
He said that the 17 injured included four policemen.
Police officials who had been escorting the bus rescued passengers from the wreckage before it caught fire, Cheema added.
He said the bus was bringing back at least 46 pilgrims to Quetta from Iran.
Senior local police official Muhammad Jaffer also confirmed the incident and casualties.
Local bomb disposal chief Commander Razzaq told AFP that the car had been blown up by somebody sitting in it.
Balochistan has been badly hit by a decade-long separatist insurgency and sectarian violence, mainly targeting Shiite Muslims from the Hazara ethnic community.
Two huge bomb attacks in Quetta in January and February last year targeting Shias from the Hazara ethnic community killed nearly 200 people.
