At least 18 people were killed on Friday in a huge blaze that erupted after gunmen opened fire on a passenger van at a petrol stall in Khuzdar, officials said. Senior local official Abdul Mansoor Kakar told AFP that four gunmen opened fire on the van with automatic rifles, igniting petrol drums by the roadside and triggering a massive inferno.
The incident took place in the outskirts of Khuzdar, around 250 kilometres (155 miles) southwest of Quetta. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. A number of stalls selling petrol smuggled from Iran were engulfed in the fire, Kakar said, with stallholders among the dead. "Four attackers riding motorbikes opened fire on these petrol stalls and ran away after the attack," Kakar told AFP.
"At least 18 people have been killed in the fire. The dead included seven women and four children sitting in the passenger van." Doctor Akbar Harifal, the top administrative official in Khuzdar confirmed the new death toll, which rose sharply from a previous tally of seven. Eleven of the 18 bodies have been identified, Kakar said, but hospital officials reported that some were burned so badly that recognition was difficult.