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QUETTA, Pakistan: A suicide bombing ripped through a political rally in Pakistan’s restive southwestern province of Balochistan on Tuesday night, killing at least 15 people and injuring 32, a senior administration official said on Wednesday, in one of the deadliest attacks in recent months.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest yet most impoverished province, has been grappling for decades with a separatist insurgency that has escalated in recent years. Militants frequently target security forces, officials and non-local residents they accuse of exploiting the province’s resources. The province is also of strategic importance for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, with China investing heavily in ports, roads and energy projects.

Police said the blast was caused by a suicide bomber who detonated about 10 kilograms of explosives as supporters and senior leaders of the Balochistan National Party-Mengal (BNP-M) left a stadium after a rally to mark the fourth death anniversary of party founder Attaullah Mengal.

“The suicide attack occurred at 9:40 p.m. outside the Shahwani Stadium when people were coming out,” Hamza Shafqaat, Additional Chief Secretary Home, said during a news conference wherein he confirmed the latest toll.

“A total of 112 policemen were deployed to protect the venue of Balochistan National Party Mengal’s rally,” he continued. “The body of the suicide bomber was recovered from the crime scene. His age was less than 30, but his ethnicity is yet to be confirmed as investigations continue.”

Shafqaat added the provincial government had already imposed Section 144 in the province following the high-level threat alert until September 15.

“Despite the threat alert, the government allowed BNP-Mengal to hold a public rally and issued a no-objection certificate with 17 to 18 clauses, including maintaining time restrictions,” he continued.

Shafqaat said law enforcement agencies had shared 22 threat alerts with the Balochistan administration related to processions marking the birth anniversary of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), which will be observed on Saturday.

“We are on high alert,” he added.

BNP-M, an ethnic Baloch nationalist party that campaigns for greater provincial autonomy and control over natural resources, is headed by former parliamentarian Sardar Akhtar Mengal and remains a key political force in Balochistan’s majority-Baloch districts.

Mengal said the explosion struck shortly after he escorted political allies out of the rally.

“After the rally, I was escorting our guests, including the opposition leader, Mehmood Khan Achakzai. As we left and moved a little ahead, the blast occurred,” Mengal told Arab News.

Mengal declared a three-day mourning period and a “black day” across Balochistan.

“The government didn’t inform us of any threat alert before the rally,” he said. “Further actions will be announced after discussions with our aligned political parties.”

Eyewitnesses described scenes of chaos.

“We looked back and saw flames rising up … several people were injured and some had already been martyred. We immediately picked up people and left for Civil Hospital,” Bilal Ahmed told Arab News.

Party member Agha Hassan Baloch said he and other leaders were just steps away when the bomber struck.

“We were approximately 15 to 20 feet away from the site of the explosion … it happened next to our party’s central leader Nawab Niyaz Zehri’s car, which was a suicide blast,” he said.

Provincial health officials said eight of the injured were in critical condition and had been shifted to the Combined Military Hospital.

“Teams are working around the clock to treat the wounded,” Dr. Waseem Baig, spokesperson for the provincial health department, said.

DARA-I-NUR, Afghanistan: Families huddled hungry and homeless days after a deadly earthquake hit eastern Afghanistan, not daring to set foot in the few remaining buildings for fear an aftershock could bring them down.
The initial powerful 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck remote regions along the border with Pakistan, killing more than 1,400 people, with at least six strong aftershocks and countless smaller tremors.
Some farming villages tucked among the green mountainsides were flattened, with people still under the rubble days later.
Elsewhere, some houses were only partially destroyed, but residents preferred to brave the elements than risk being crushed.
Still haunted by the “terrifying night” when the quake destroyed his house in the village of Dar-i-nur in Nangarhar province, Emran Mohammad Aref said he had since slept with four other family members outside on a rough plastic mat.
“There was a tremor yesterday and there was also one this morning,” Aref told AFP.
“Now we have no place to live and we are asking everyone for help.”
While those with the means fled the village, residents who had no choice but to stay cobbled together makeshift shelters with whatever they could find among the destruction.
Even in Jalalabad, Nangarhar’s provincial capital, which suffered no damage but felt the quake and its aftershocks, “we are very afraid,” said Fereshta, a 42-year-old doctor.
“Every time I take a step, I feel like the ground is shaking. We don’t stay inside the house and we sleep in the garden, constantly thinking there will be another quake,” she said.
Similar scenes are playing out across the affected region, some in the isolated areas of hard-hit Kunar province that are still cut off from aid by landslides caused by the quake and aftershocks.
But in fleeing their homes — often built on high ground — and taking refuge in low-lying fields, riverbeds or by roadsides, survivors risk being hit by rockfall if aftershocks strike, warned Ijaz Ulhaq Yaad, a senior official in Kunar’s Nurgal district.
“The area is very dangerous, you cannot stay there long or even walk through it,” said Yaad.
The United Nations said it has 14,000 tents ready for distribution.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) told AFP it has at least 700 tents available, but cannot deliver them to survivors because of difficult access to the villages.
“Help us, give us shelter, help my children, we have nothing left,” pleaded Sorat, a housewife injured in the quake along with her husband and children.
After being pulled from the ruins of her house by rescuers, she was treated in a regional hospital, then sent back to her village, where nothing awaits her, she told AFP.
While waiting for aid, “we are staying in the valley,” she said, sitting in her blue all-enveloping burqa on a traditional simple woven bed surrounded by her three small children.
This earthquake, one of the deadliest in Afghanistan in decades, is “the last thing families with young children need in a country where many don’t have enough food, and a large portion of the children are already malnourished,” the World Food Programme said, adding the situation “is brutal.”
Afghanistan, still fragile after decades of war and a prolonged humanitarian crisis, has been rocked by other severe, deadly quakes in recent years — one in 2023 in western Herat, on the other side of the country near Iran.
That first 6.3-magnitude tremor was followed by at least eight powerful aftershocks and destroyed entire villages.