Karachi buses hit by blasts

Twin bomb attacks targeting Pakistan navy buses have killed at least three people and wounded another 30 in the port city of Karachi, officials said.

Twin bomb attacks targeting Pakistan navy buses have killed at least three people and wounded another 30 in the port city of Karachi, officials said.

The two buses carrying navy personnel were targeted in the upmarket Defence Housing Scheme and the impoverished Baldia town neighbourhood.

"Three people were killed and 30 injured in two bomb blasts targeting navy buses in Karachi," senior provincial home department official, Sharfuddin Memon told AFP, updating an initial death toll of one.

Memon said the first bomb was planted on a motorbike and the second was hidden in rubbish. Local intelligence officials told AFP that the bombs were triggered by remote control near buses carrying naval officials.

Karachi is Pakistan's economic hub, home to its stock exchange and a lifeline for a depressed economy wilting under inflation and stagnating foreign investment.

But the sprawling, politically tense city of 16 million has been plagued by ethnic and sectarian killings, crime and kidnappings. It is scored with rivalries between the Urdu-speaking majority and an influx of Pashtuns from the northwest, which has been hit by a Taliban insurgency.

Outbreaks of political violence in Karachi killed more than 150 people last year and extremists have also targeted Shiite and Sufi religious gatherings. Late Monday, armed men attacked and set fire to a passenger bus, killing at least 13 people in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, which neighbours Karachi's province of Sindh.

The attack took place in Sibbi town, 180 kilometres (110 miles) southeast of Quetta, capital of the oil- and gas-rich Baluchistan, which has been troubled by violence and which borders Iran and Afghanistan.