Suicide bomber targeting security forces kills 8 in Pakistan

By Abdul Sattar, Associated Press

Saturday, Feb. 6, 2016 | 7:24 a.m.

QUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide bomber riding on a bicycle targeted a vehicle carrying security forces in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least eight people, mostly civilians, and wounding more than 20.

Senior police officer Imtiaz Shah said the attacker blew himself up near a vehicle belonging to the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. Government spokesman Anwar Kakar said the attack killed six civilians and two members of the security forces.

Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the main Taliban group in Pakistan, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement, saying the target was a Frontier Corps convoy. He provided no further details.

Pakistan has seen a decline in militant attacks since launching a massive military operation in the northwestern tribal regions -- a longtime stronghold of the Taliban -- in the summer of 2014.

But the group retains the ability to carry out large attacks, and has long had a presence in Baluchistan, which is also home to a low-level separatist insurgency.