The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has threatened to blow up a key oil field, as officials said on Monday they had tightened security around a nuclear plant. The BLA said it would strike the oil and gas installation at Dhodak in Punjab. It marks an apparent attempt by the group to spread violence beyond Balochistan into other areas. "We will blow up the oil and gas field in Dhodak if non-locals working at the plant are not expelled," said the group's purported spokesman Azad Baloch.

He gave the warning in a telephone call to local newspaper offices on Sunday at the same time as claiming responsibility for a bomb, which ruptured a gas pipeline, also in Punjab.

Local officials said they had taken steps to protect national assets including the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission facility at Dera Ghazi Khan, some 112 kilometers east of Dhodak.

"We have made all necessary arrangements for the security of sensitive areas like Dhodak gas field, atomic energy station, bridges and railway track in Dera Ghazi Khan district," district police chief Salman Chaudhry told AFP.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2005