03-13-06,9:42am

ISLAMABAD, 10 Mar 2006 (IRIN) - At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed as a trailer carrying a wedding party hit an anti-tank mine on Friday morning in Pakistan’s restive southern province of Balochistan, according to officials.

'We know that 26 people died and seven were injured when the tractor trolley carrying them hit at least one anti-tank mine at Rakhni [about 300 km east of the provincial capital Quetta]. There were women and children in the vehicle and we are trying to get details of how many,' Raziq Bugti, a spokesman for the Balochistan provincial government, said from Quetta.

Bugti said the injured were being shifted to Dera Ghazi Khan city in the neighbouring province of Punjab. While paramilitary troops have sealed off the site of the explosion, he added.

Balochistan, home to eight million people, is the largest but least developed of Pakistan's four provinces, covering about 44 percent of the country's total land area.

Bugti blamed the attack on 'terrorist' tribal militants who are waging an insurgency to win more autonomy and a greater share of the gas-rich region's vast natural resources.

'The government of Balochistan condemns this act of sabotage in which innocent people were killed. Those behind the attack are terrorists and we are dealing with them with an iron hand,' he added.

The insurgents regularly attack gas pipelines, railways and military and government installations, while clashes between militants and security forces are frequent. Islamabad has moved thousands of troops into Balochistan since a January 2005 deadly rocket attack on the country's biggest natural gas plant at Sui, some 320 km southeast of Quetta, sparked the current wave of unrest.

Security officials say there has been an escalation in violence in the province since the government ordered a fresh crackdown in December 2005 after rockets hit the town of Kohlu during a visit by President Pervez Musharraf.