Eleven female students killed in Quetta blast

Associated Press

A bomb tore through a bus of female university students in southwestern Pakistan Saturday, killing 11, officials said. As family and friends gathered at the hospital another blast went off, followed by a flurry of bullets that sent bystanders running for cover. The violence in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan, came hours after militants destroyed a historic house elsewhere in the province that at one time was used by the country's founder. No one claimed responsibility for the multiple attacks Saturday that highlighted the violence that has continued to plague the sparsely populated province. Baluch nationalists pushing for more say in the province's future, Taliban militants and violent sectarian groups all have a presence in the region. At least 19 other students were wounded when the bomb went off near the bus, said police officer Mir Zubair Mahmood. Television footage of the bus showed a blackened hulk with twisted pieces of metal and articles of women's clothing strewn about. The second blast occurred at a hospital where the dead and wounded were taken later Saturday. The police chief and the chief secretary of the province had arrived at the hospital when the blast went off in a corridor of the hospital's emergency room, said Fayaz Sumbal, a senior police officer in Quetta. Sumbal said at least four people were wounded. The blast was followed by bursts of gunfire but it was not clear whether the firing was the work of militants or security officials. Images on Pakistani television showed people running from the hospital building into a parking lot filled with ambulances. Some people appeared to be taking cover behind the vehicles.