Bomb wounds nine in Pakistani restaurant

A home-made bomb exploded in a restaurant in southern Pakistan today, wounding nine people, police said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack in Hub, a town about 30 miles west of Karachi.

Ishaq Baluch, an area police chief, said they had transported the injured to a hospital.

"So far we only know that the bomb had been concealed in a bag, but we have no other details," he said.

But hours after the attack, Mir Azad Baluch, a purported spokesman for the Baluchistan Liberation Army -- an ethnic group which has waged a campaign for the rights of Baluchistan -- claimed responsibility.

"We used the bomb to target some security agents who were sitting in the restaurant at the time," he told local journalists in a telephone call to the Press Club in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province.

Baluchistan has been the scene of scores of bombings and rocket attacks in recent years, most blamed on renegade tribesmen who have been demanding an increase in royalties for resources like natural gas extracted in their territory.

Many tribesmen also oppose central government plans to build new military garrisons, demanding that funds for building the bases should instead be spent on development in the impoverished province.