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Blast kills 3 students at school in Pakistan

  • Story Highlights
  • Blast at Islamic religious school near Pakistani city of Quetta kills 3 students
  • Attack is third on school in Pakistan during holy Islamic month of Ramadan
  • Pakistan's military targeting al Qaeda, Taliban in North West Frontier Province
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From CNN's Zein Basravi
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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A blast Friday evening at an Islamic religious school near the western Pakistani city of Quetta killed three students and wounded six others, a police official said.

The explosion struck Madrasa Muhammadia of Dev Band, an Islamic sect, in the village of Geli Kark, according to Quetta district police official Wahih Bakhsh.

The village is about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan.

The attack is the third strike or attempted strike on a school in Pakistan this week during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, which is over at the end of September.

Police and villagers on Thursday foiled what they suspected was a plot to attack a local girls' school in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, police and local officials said.

Upper Dir district administrator Ayanatullah Khan said authorities and residents of Miskari village confronted three men in a pickup whom they believed were coming to the village to attack the school.

When the men were halted, there was an exchange of gunfire and one of the men in the truck was wounded, Khan said. As villagers and police approached the vehicle, the wounded man blew himself and another man up, according to Khan and police spokesman Kurshid Khan.

The third man, who police say is from Uzbekistan, was arrested and taken to the police station, Ayanatullah Khan said. No damage was done to the school, officials said.

On Tuesday, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gates of a school in the Swat District of the North West Frontier Province. The evening attack was repelled by gunfire from troops at the checkpoint before the bomber reached his target, Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan told CNN. Three soldiers were killed in the strike, he said.

Swat militants loyal to banned religious leader Maulana Fazlullah claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the military. One militant, the suicide attacker in the car, was killed.

North West Frontier Province is located along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan's military has launched a massive operation targeting al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Journalist Janullah Khan contributed to this report from Peshawar.

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