Several bomb attacks on buses across Pakistan have reportedly claimed 20 lives and injured around 50 people, including women and children.
Two of the blasts hit buses carrying navy officers to work in Pakistan’s southern port city of Karachi, Press TV reported Tuesday.
In the first attack, over 20 people, including a woman, sustained injuries after an explosive-laden motorcycle rammed into a Pakistani Navy bus in the city’s military Defense Housing Scheme area.
About 15 minutes later, another Navy bus was blown up near Baldia Town district, killing four people and wounding dozens of others.
Local intelligence officials say the second bomb was hidden in a rubbish bin.
Initial reports only reported one fatal casualty.
Karachi — Pakistan’s largest city — is home to numerous ethnic groups and has been wracked by clashes between rival ethnic and political factions for much of the 1990s.
According to official reports, outbreaks of political violence in Karachi killed more than 150 people in 2010.
Meanwhile, at least 16 people, including children, were killed and more than a dozen others wounded late Monday, when a passenger bus was torched in the Pakistani southwestern province of Baluchistan.
The attack took place in Sibi town, 180 kilometers (110 miles) southeast of Quetta, capital of the oil- and gas-rich Baluchistan, which has been troubled by growing violence.
No group or individual has so far claimed responsibility for any of the deadly explosions.
In recent years, unauthorized US drone strikes combined with Pakistani military operations in northwestern regions as well as a persisting political unrest have unleashed a wave of reprisal attacks by militants.
Source: Press TV