At least 38 people were killed and scores injured on Thursday in two suicide bombings in Pakistan, including one targeting a group of Chinese engineers, in possible fallout of the bloody crackdown against pro-Taliban Lal Masjid in Islamabad.

A suicide bomber driving an explosive-laden vehicle exploded when a security convoy carrying Chinese engineers overtook his car in the Hub town of southwest Balochistan province.

"The bomber exploded prematurely as a result the impact of the blast was felt by the police vehicle going ahead of the bus (carrying the Chinese engineers).

The Chinese guests were safe and driven to safety," Major General Saleem Nawas, heading the paramilitary Frontier Corps guarding the town, told media.

He said 30 people, including eight policemen, were killed and 25 injured in the attack. The explosion also caused extensive damage to several shops and vehicles in the vicinity.

In another similar suicide attack at a police training centre at Hangu in North West Frontier Province, eight persons were killed and 23 injured.

The bomber reportedly blew his vehicle at the entrance of the police training centre at the city.

He tried to enter the centre but was stopped at the gate where he exploded the car, reports from Bajore in NWFP said, adding eight shops were also gutted in the blast.

In Islamabad, there was a sense of relief over the escape of Chinese engineers in the suicide attack.

Chinese nationals in the past also came under attacks by the Baloch nationalists as Beijing [Images] funded most of the "mega projects" in the province, which the locals perceive as an invasion by outsiders into their sparsely-populated region rich in natural resources like gas and minerals.

However, this was the first time that a suicide attack was carried out targeting the Chinese in Balochistan.

Last month, seven Chinese nationals including six women were abducted by militant students of the madrassas run by the Lal Masjid. After that militants killed three Chinese workers in Peshawar.

The attacks prompted Beijing to ask its close ally Islamabad to step up security for over 3,000 Chinese nationals working in Pakistan. A number of Chinese work in different projects in Hub, a major industrial town in Balochistan.

Today's attacks are seen as a fallout of the military crackdown against the pro-Taliban Lal Masjid. While 103 people, mostly militants, were killed in the July 11 raid against the Lal Masjid, more than 100 have died and scores injured in a spate of bomb blasts that have rocked Islamabad since.

Image: Bystanders and officials stand around bodies of blast victims at a hospital in Hub district, some 25 km from Karachi.
Photograph: Asif Hassan/AFP/Getty Images