Bomb blast kills five in southwest Pakistan

QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A bomb blast near a playground killed five people, including a child and a woman, in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province on Wednesday, police and hospital officials said, as the country celebrates the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr.

Over a dozen people were also wounded in the blast in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan where Baluch militants have waged a low-level insurgency for decades.

"It appears the bomb was placed in a car but we are investigating," top police official Hamid Shakeel told Reuters.

Another official said the explosive was detonated by remote-controlled device.

About 10 cars caught fire after the explosion that also damaged nearby houses.

The bomb attack was made as people in the pre-dominantly Muslim Pakistan celebrated Eid al-Fitr that marked the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

There was no claim of responsibility, but most of the violence in the province has been blamed on Baluch militants in the past, fighting a protracted insurgency to demand more autonomy and control over the natural resources of their impoverished region.

Pro-Taliban militants are also active in the province which shares borders with Afghanistan and Iran.

Pakistan has seen a wave of violence in past years, most of it in the country's northwest where troops are battling militants.

A bomb blast killed at least nine people and wounded 12 in the northwestern garrison town of Risalpur last week.

(Reporting by Gul Yousafzai; Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Frederik Richter)