Rail line, gas pipe blown up in Pakistan unrest
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-02-06 14:31

Suspected bomb blasts caused major damage to a train track and a gas pipe, officials said, as a rebellion by tribesmen simmered in southwest Pakistan.

The main railway line between Quetta, the capital of restive Baluchistan province, and Zahidan in neighbouring Iran was severed for the second time in a week.

Two metres (yards) of track were blown up some 120 kilometres (70 miles) from Quetta, which has itself been hit by a number of blasts in recent months, said provincial interior minister Aftab Jamal Ahmad.

Meanwhile a shadowy nationalist group called the Baluchistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for a blast which wrecked a gas line in the neighbouring province of Punjab.

"This shows we can strike whenever and wherever we like," the organisation's purported spokesman Azad Baluch -- an apparent non de guerre meaning Free Baluchistan -- said in a telephone call to local journalists.

Gas officials confirmed a line ruptured near Mangrotha in Dera Ghazi Khan district, 90 kilometres west of the central city of Multan, and some supplies were halted.

They said the cause could not be found because it was dark at the site but did not rule out sabotage.

The blasts come after another six rocked Pakistan on Thursday, including the first on the Quetta-Iran railway line. Five were in Baluchistan.

Baluchistan, the largest and poorest of Pakistan's four provinces, is in the throes of an intensifying rebellion by tribesmen demanding a bigger share of the region's natural resources.

The Baluchistan Liberation Army has said it carried out a number of the previous attacks, including rocket strikes on Pakistan's largest gas field at Sui last month that left eight people dead.

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