By ANTARA News
Quetta, Pakistan : A Pakistani soldier was killed and two others were wounded when a landmine blew up their vehicle in the southwestern province of Baluchistan early Thursday, officials said.
The blast happened near a gas field in Nasirabad district of the region hit by a tribal insurgency, a security official told AFP.
The two injured soldiers were rushed to hospital after their vehicle was badly destroyed, the official said, requesting anonymity.
He said militants also fired three rockets on a check post in the nearby district of Dera Bugti overnight but caused no casualties.
Baluchistan, which borders both Iran and Afghanistan, has been in the grip of a three-year rebellion waged by ethnic Baluch rebels seeking more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural resources.
Hundreds of people have died in violence in the province since the insurgency flared in late 2004. Rebel leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, whose base was in Dera Bugti, was killed by the army in August 2006.
The province has also been hit by attacks blamed on Islamist Taliban militants.