Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:30:15 GMT
Two overnight blasts have rocked southwestern Pakistan's restive Balochistan province, damaging a gas pipeline and a residential house.
A main pipeline was destroyed after a bomb blast in Kaarani area, cutting gas supply to some 1,000 consumer, Police officials told Press TV Thursday.
In another incident, unknown militants threw a grenade at a house located in Shahbaz town in Quetta city late on Wednesday, shattering windowpanes.
The Pakistani government has dispatched a team of expert to repair the pipeline. It is expected that the gas flow would resume as early as Thursday afternoon.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the blasts, but the growing number of similar attacks that usually target the gas-rich region's pipelines, bear the fingerprint of an ethnic tribal movement campaigning for autonomy and larger share of gas resources.
The Balochistan Republican Army has said its fighters were behind last month's pipelines blasts.
However, Taliban militants have often claimed responsibility for attacks in the insurgency-hit province as well.
Insurgency has increased in Balochistan, which borders war-torn Afghanistan, following the 2001 US-led invasion that sent Taliban militants across the border into Pakistan.
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