The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Quetta

Seven people were killed and 15 others were injured when a bomb exploded in a market in troubled Baluchistan province in the latest violence to hit Pakistan, police said.

The blast happened as passengers were waiting at a mini-van stand in the main market in Dera Bugti town in the southwestern province, which is in the grip of a low-level insurgency.

"There was a bomb explosion in the main bazaar and seven people were killed and six are wounded," local police officer Hazoor Baksh told AFP.

Another police officer said 15 people were wounded and a van was completely destroyed in the blast in Dera Bugti about 250 kilometres southeast (155 miles) of provincial capital Quetta.

"We are investigating if the bomb was planted in the van which was parked near a passenger van," local officer Mohammed Baluch said.

The attack comes after 138 people were killed in a suicide bombing targeting former premier Benazir Bhutto during her homecoming parade in the southern port city of Karachi late on Thursday.

The blasts -- the worst suicide bombing in Pakistan's history -- ripped through a crowd numbering tens of thousands of supporters welcoming her return to Pakistan after eight years in self-imposed exile.

Bhutto has since pledged to stay in Pakistan to combat militancy and fight general elections in January, seen as a key step to returning the Islamic republic of some 160 million people to civilian rule.

Police were probing Saturday a list of possible suspects given by Bhutto.

Bhutto has said that she received a prior warning about members of Al-Qaeda, Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and a Karachi-based militant group who may plan to attack her. Pakistan has been hit by a wave of Islamist violence, including suicide attacks, unleashed after the government ordered troops to storm the Al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July.

The operation, ordered by President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror", killed more than 100 people. Another 300 people have since died in the Islamist violence.