Female suicide bomber kills 1 person and injures 3 in southwest Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan — A female suicide bomber killed one person and injured three when she targeted the vehicle of a paramilitary patrol in Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, a police official said Monday.

Female suicide bombers are rare in Pakistan. The last confirmed suicide attack by a woman was in 2022, when three Chinese teachers and their Pakistani driver were killed in an explosion that ripped through their van at a university campus in Karachi.

Monday’s assault was in Kalat, about 170 kilometers (105 miles) southwest of Balochistan’s capital Quetta.

Images from the blast site showed a scorched Frontier Corps vehicle with its doors blown off.

The explosion killed the vehicle driver and injured three security personnel, Kalat police official Habibullah said. Body parts of the assailant were recovered from the scene, Habibullah said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but suspicion is likely to fall on the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army. It is waging an insurgency against the central government and wants independence.

Authorities estimate that the group, which Pakistan and the U.S. have designated a terrorist organization, has around 3,000 fighters.

It regularly targets security forces but has also in the past attacked Chinese nationals working on megaprojects in the country.