A suicide bomb blast that targeted the convoy of Deputy Senate Chairman of JUI-F in Mastung killed at least 25 people and wounded more than 30 others, officials told AFP Friday. The attack in Mastung district, roughly an hour east of Quetta, struck a vehicle carrying the deputy chairman of Senate Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri. It was later claimed by the Islamic State group, which has been making inroads in the country through alliances with local militant outfits.

"I am alive, Allah has saved my life, it was a sudden blast, broken pieces of the windscreen hit me, I am injured but safe. The driver and other people sitting next to me were badly injured," Haideri said on a private TV channel. Survivors, several covered in blood, were picking up body parts that lay scattered in the road among vehicles twisted by the blast. Paramilitary troops and a bomb disposal squad were deployed outside a nearby madrassa where the convoy had been headed for a graduation ceremony. Pakistani, Afghan, Chinese and Bangladeshi flags - the nationalities of students at the seminary - were on display ahead of the ceremony.

A local government official and a senior police official confirmed to AFP that it was a suicide bombing and the attacker came riding a motorcycle and blew himself up close to Haideri's vehicle. Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility via its Amaq news agency.

"A martyrdom-seeker from the Islamic State targeted with his explosive vest a convoy of the deputy chairman of the Pakistan Senate, Abdul Ghafoor Haideri, in Mastung district, south of the city of Quetta," the group said. JUI-F has been targeted by the Pakistani Taliban in the past - even though the party leaders have acted as negotiators between the militants and Pakistan government on several occasions.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017