A bomb attached to a timer ripped through a two-story hotel in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province yesterday, reducing the building to rubble and killing 12 people, police said.
The attack in the town of Dera Allah Yar also wounded 23 people, said Jawed Iqbal Gharshin, the police chief in surrounding Jafferabad district. Police have taken two people into custody who had tea in the hotel's restaurant and left just before the bomb went off, he said. Dera Allah Yar is some 220 miles (350km) east of the provincial capital of Quetta.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack. But Baluchistan has experienced a decades-long insurgency by nationalists who want a greater share of the region's natural resources. The province, next to Afghanistan, is also believed to be a home for many Taliban militants.
In another incident which took place in Baluchistan, two gunmen riding a motorcycle killed a local journalist in the city of Khuzdar, located 170 miles from Quetta, said area police chief Qadir Shaikh.
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