Two buses attacked in Pakistan

Around 20 armed attackers stormed two buses in Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province on Friday. Officials said 21 passengers were killed and at least 25 were taken by the gunmen into the mountains.

Baluchistan's Home Minister Sarfaraz Bugti said the gunmen released 50 passengers during the attack. "The armed men were wearing the uniforms of the security forces," Sarfaraz Bugti said. He added that security forces had fought with the gunmen, and rescued six passengers, one of whom was wounded.

Baluchistan's Information Minister Abdur Rahim Ziaratwal said the gunmen left the bodies of the 21 dead behind as they escaped deeper into the mountains.

The buses were traveling from the Baluchistan capital, Quetta, to Karachi on the southern coast.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack but Baluch separatists demanding greater autonomy for the region have been fighting an insurgency for years. The province is also divided by sectarian and Islamist violence.

Also on Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a stadium in Lahore, the capital city of Punjab province, where a cricket match was underway between Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Information Minister Pervez Rashid said police had prevented the bomber from getting closer to the stadium. But the bomber set off the explosives, killing one police officer and wounding six others.

jm/jr (AP, AFP)