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QUETTA: A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a stadium Tuesday night as supporters of a nationalist party were leaving a rally in insurgency-hit southwest Pakistan, killing at least 13 people and wounding 30 others, police and hospital officials said Wednesday.
Local police chief Majeed Qaisrani said the blast occurred near a graveyard close to the stadium on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. The body parts of the attacker were recovered, he said.
Waseem Baig, a spokesman for a government hospital, said it had received 13 bodies and dozens of wounded, some in critical condition.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
The rally was held to mark the anniversary of the death of Sardar Ataullah Mengal, a veteran nationalist leader and former provincial chief minister.
The leader of the Balochistan National Party, Akhtar Mengal, was unharmed in the attack but some of his supporters were among the dead and wounded, senior police officer Usama Ameen said. Mengal is a vocal critic of the government and often holds rallies to demand the release of missing Baloch nationalists.
Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti condemned the bombing as a “cowardly act of the enemies of humanity,” ordering the best possible medical care for the wounded and a high-level probe to bring the perpetrators to justice.
In Islamabad, Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi also denounced the attack, blaming “India-backed terrorists and their facilitators” for trying to destabilize the country by targeting civilians. He offered no evidence to back up the allegation.
Pakistan’s government and Bugti in recent months have frequently accused India of backing both the Pakistani Taliban and Baloch separatists, a charge New Delhi denies.
Balochistan has long been the scene of a low-level insurgency, with groups such as the Balochistan Liberation Army demanding independence from the central government. The separatists have largely targeted security forces and workers from Pakistan’s Punjab province.
Although authorities say the insurgency has been subdued, violence in the region continues.
In July, gunmen abducted and killed nine people after stopping two passenger buses on a highway in Balochistan as the buses traveled from Quetta to Punjab province. Most such previous attacks have been claimed by the outlawed BLA group.

TAIPEI: Taiwan President Lai Ching-te criticized strongmen personality cults and secret police networks on Wednesday, as Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted the leaders of Russia and North Korea at a military parade marking the end of World War Two.
Democratically-governed Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory, has repeatedly lambasted China for what Taipei sees as a distorted view of the war, as the Republic of China was the government at the time, fighting alongside the Allies.
The Republic of China government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists and retains the formal name to this day.
Writing on his Facebook page to mark Armed Forces Day in Taiwan, Lai said republican general Hsu Yung-chang signed the Japan surrender on behalf of China, calling it “gratifying” that the former Axis powers had all become democracies since.
“The definition of fascism is broad,” Lai wrote.
“It encompasses extreme nationalism, the pursuit of illusory great nation rejuvenation, intense domestic speech control, suppression of social diversity, establishment of secret police networks, and overt cults of personality around strongman leaders.”
Lai did not directly mention China’s war parade, at which Xi, flanked by Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, warned the world was facing a choice between peace and war.
Some Taiwan television stations showed the event, but it did not get the same wall-to-wall coverage as in China.
“I think that the three of them joining together is meant to show they might be willing to use force to invade Taiwan and threaten Western countries,” said Taipei restaurant owner Chen Ho-chien, 29, referring to Xi, Putin and Kim.
During China’s parade, Lai attended a memorial ceremony at Taipei’s National Revolutionary Martyrs’ Shrine to commemorate those who died fighting for the Republic of China, including those who battled Japan and the communists.
China detests Lai, who says only Taiwan’s people can decide their future, as a “separatist” and has rebuffed his repeated calls for talks. China has massively increased its military pressure on Taiwan, including holding war games nearby.
Taiwan told its people not to attend Beijing’s parade.
The most high-profile attendee from Taiwan was Hung Hsiu-chu, former chairwoman of its largest opposition party the Kuomintang, or KMT.
The KMT was the Republic of China’s ruling party during the war against Japan, and it fled, along with the republican government, to Taiwan in 1949.
The KMT did not send any official delegation to Beijing’s parade.