QUETTA, Pakistan, Sept 5, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - At least three paramilitary

guards were killed Sunday when a suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself
up in Quetta, southwestern Pakistan, police said.

The bomber targeted Frontier Constabulary guards in the Mian Ghundi
neighbourhood of the city -- close to the Afghanistan border -- where Hazara
Shiite merchants were trading vegetables.

Azhar Akram, a deputy inspector general of police, told AFP that 20 people
were injured in the blast, including civilians.

A spokesman for the police's Counter-Terrorism Department confirmed the
toll.

Shiite Muslims have been frequently targeted in restive Balochistan by
radical Sunni Islamist groups, who consider them a heretical sect. Frontier
guards have also been targeted by Baloch insurgents, who have been waging a
simmering insurgency for greater autonomy.