QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — A powerful roadside bomb exploded near a security vehicle in volatile southwest Pakistan on Friday, killing two soldiers and wounding three others in a sign of increasing violence in the region.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast about 300 kilometers (180 miles) east of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. A local police official, Lal Khan, said the dead and wounded had been shifted to a hospital.

Previous attacks have been blamed on separatist groups that have been carrying out a long-running insurgency against the central government in Islamabad. Pakistan says it has quelled the insurgency, but violence has continued in the province, which shares a long border with Iran and Afghanistan.