Premature Detonation: Young Suicide Bomber Dies When Explosive Vest Triggers Too Early

Pakistani police said a suicide bomber targeting the country's Shiite minority killed himself in a premature explosion in southwestern Pakistan Saturday.

Hamid Shakeel, deputy inspector general in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, said the incident took place on the outskirts of the city, the Associated Press reported.

A man in his twenties was heading toward a Shiite mosque when his explosive-rigged suicide vest went off prematurely, just short of his apparent target, he said.

“It was a failed suicide attack," Shakeel told French news service AFP.

According to the Associated Press, al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant groups have targeted the country's Shiite minority in suicide bombings and in shootings in recent. Baluchistan, near the border of Iran and Afghanistan, has recently been a center of this violence, with at least four major attacks against Shiites since May.