Bombing of gas pipeline kills 7-year-old girl; two policemen slain in Pakistan

PAKISTAN: A bomb blew up a gas pipeline Wednesday in southwestern Pakistan, killing a 7-year-old girl and wounding two other people, while gunmen shot and killed two policemen elsewhere in the insurgency-wracked region.

Mah Noor was going to school with her mother in the town of Sui in Baluchistan province when a gas pipeline that runs through town exploded with a big bang, said Abdul Samad Lasi, the top government official in the region.

The girl was killed, and her mother and another passer-by were wounded, he said. Lasi blamed members of a renegade tribal group for the blast, but offered no evidence to back up the claim.

Sui is about 350 kilometers (220 miles) east of the provincial capital of Quetta.

Renegade tribesmen often target gas facilities, police and security forces in the region in a campaign to force the federal government to hand over more royalties from resources extracted there.

Also Wednesday, gunmen stormed a police post in Kot Nasrullah, a village about 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of Quetta, killing two policemen before fleeing, said Jamil Asghar, an area police chief.

Asghar accused the same tribal group of launching the attack, but said no arrests had been made.

Although the government has said it quelled the region's tribal insurgency, the continued unrest has raised fears of a repeat of violence that rocked the province in the 1970s, when thousands died in a military operation against rebellious tribesmen.

QUETTA,Wednesday AP