Fifteen killed in Pakistan blast

The death toll in a car bomb blast in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta rose to 15 on Saturday as rescuers found seven more bodies in the rubble, police said. A car bomb exploded in front of the house of the son of a former federal minister, Naseer Mengal, on Friday and officials gave a death toll of eight. “The death toll is 15 now. Three more bodies were found in the rubble today and rest were dug out overnight,” Nazir Ahmad Kurd, a senior police official told AFP. Some 40 others were wounded and 10 have been released from hospital after treatment, he added. Investigators defused an eight-kilogram local made bomb and found seven hand grenades from the site, Kurd said. It was still unclear who had carried out the attack and whether the driver died in the blast as there were yet no witnesses, Hamid Shakil, another senior police official told AFP. But a spokesman for rebel group Balochistan Liberation Army Meerak Baluch called reporters in Quetta and claimed that they carried out the “suicide attack to teach a lesson to traitors.” Officials did not comment on the authenticity of the claim. Quetta is the capital of the troubled Balochistan province which neighbors both Afghanistan and Iran and is gripped by a regional insurgency for self-determination. It is also a flashpoint for Taliban and sectarian violence.