The attack in Quetta, a city of 900,000 and the capital of Balochistan province, comes two days after another suicide bomb attack in Pakistan in which the death count has risen to more than 50 people.

Balochistan's chief minister Aslam Raisani escaped unhurt from the blast that damaged several vehicles and set at least one on fire.

Raisani was being driven from his home to the provincial assembly building when the convoy was passing a railway crossing and a man stepped out from the crowd, Quetta administration spokesman Nasim Lehri said.

"It was a suicide bombing, the convoy of the chief minister was damaged," Lehri said. An unexploded hand-grenade also was found nearby.

"The chief minister was the target, but he remained unhurt," a senior police officer said. "One of the escort cars was damaged and some officials were wounded."

Raisani, 56, was elected chief minister by a 61 of the 65 members of the provincial assembly in April 2008.

The attack on Raisani comes a week after an attempt on the life another senior Balochistan politician, Gov. Zulfiqar Ali Magsi, 56, and a former chief minister of the province in the 1990s.

Magsi was returning to Quetta from Kalat, around 80 miles away in central Balochistan, after attending the funeral of his mother-in-law.

"It was a remote-controlled device concealed in a destroyed NATO trailer lying along the Quetta-Karachi highway," a senior government official said.

No one was hurt in the blast and police are holding a suspect.

No group claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on Raisani but police said the proscribed secessionist group Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for attempt on Magsi's life.

The Balochistan Liberation army is based in Afghanistan, across the province's northern border, and wants an independent state of Balochistan free of Pakistani and Iranian rule.

The BLA is one a number of secessionist groups including the Baloch Liberation Front, Baloch Republican Army and Popular Front for Armed Resistance.

It rose to public prominence in mid 2000 when it claimed credit for a series of bomb attacks in markets and along railway lines. Police also suspect it was responsible for a major explosion in the commercial district of Quetta in June 2000 that killed 26 soldiers and five civilians.

In 2006, the BLA was declared a proscribed group by the Pakistani and British governments, with Britain banning its members from entering the United Kingdom. The Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, part of the U.S. Department of State, has described the BLA's actions as terror attacks.

Meanwhile, the death toll has risen to at least 50 people from a double suicide bomb attack near Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan.

The blast happened in a protected government administration compound during a meeting between government officials, local tribal leaders and groups opposed to the Taliban.

The attack happened in Ghalanai, the main town in the Mohmand Agency, one of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, all of which lie to the north of Balochistan province. Ghalanai is around 110 miles from Islamabad.

The tribal area comprises the separate, semi-autonomous administrative units of seven agencies and six smaller frontier regions lying along the politically sensitive border with Afghanistan.

The Taliban and al-Qaida heavily influence the tribal areas, one of the poorest regions in the country.

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