The blast went off at a Sunni Muslim mosque when people were offering Friday prayers.
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| Bomb blast at Quetta mosque |
A bomb at a mosque in the Quetta, Pakistan on Friday killed two worshippers and wounded 14, officials said.
The blast went off at the Sunni Muslim mosque when people were offering Friday prayers.
"There were about 100 people there when a bomb exploded very close to the prayer leader," said police officer Abdul Qayum.
There was no claim of responsibility.
Quetta is the capital Baluchistan province which has been plagued for decades by a separatist insurgency. The separatists usually attack energy infrastructure and the security forces.
Sunni Muslim militants also operate in the province. They usually attack government targets and members of the Shi'ite Muslim minority.
Attacks on Sunni mosques are rare. Police said they were investigating.
On May 16, Pakistani security forces killed nine Islamic State militants during an hours-long raid near Quetta in the restive southwest of the country that has been hit by repeated jihadist attacks this month, officials had said.
Four members of the security forces were wounded in the operation in a mountainous area called Qabu Koh-e-Mehran in the Mastung district, 29 miles (47 km) from Quetta city.
"Nine bodies (of Islamic State militants) have been brought to the hospital from Mastung," Waseem Baig, a spokesman for Civil Hospital Quetta, told Reuters.
Security forces acted after a sudden surge in militant assaults across Pakistan during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Five police were killed in the latest attack, on Monday night in Quetta, which was claimed by Islamic State.
"We acted on intelligence reports of a Daesh hideout," a senior official of the Counter Terrorism Department of Baluchistan police told Reuters, requesting anonymity for security reasons, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
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