Pakistan blasts leaves 24 dead outside election candidates’ offices

At least 24 people have been killed in two blasts in southwestern Pakistan near the offices of two election candidates, according to local officials.

The first attack, which killed 14, took place at the office of an independent election candidate in Pishin district in the Balochistan region.

The second explosion in Qilla Saifullah, a town near the Afghan border, detonated near an office of Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI), a religious party that has previously been the target of militant attacks, according to the province’s information minister.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Several groups, including the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban and separatist groups from Balochistan, oppose the Pakistani state and have carried out a spate of attacks in recent months.

The attacks came despite the deployment of tens of thousands of police and paramilitary forces across Pakistan to ensure police following a recent surge in militant attacks, especially in Balochistan.

Pakistan has been gripped by a wave of violence ahead of general elections tomorrow.

On Monday at least 10 police personnel were killed and six others injured in a pre-dawn attack by militants on a police station in the northwestern Draban region.

Last week a national assembly candidate was shot dead in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and another political leader was shot dead on the same day in his party’s election office in Balochistan.

The day before a bomb attack following an election rally killed four people in Balochistan. Islamic State claimed responsibility.