QUETTA, Pakistan (AFP) - A bomb blast on Friday killed 10 people and wounded 31 others in Pakistan's restive south-western city of Quetta, officials said.

City police chief Abdul Razzaq Cheema said a vehicle carrying security forces appeared to have been the target of the attack, which occurred outside a college in the centre of the city.

"Ten people were killed and 31 injured. Around eight are in critical condition," Mr Cheema told AFP, adding that eight to 10 kilos of explosives were used in the bomb.

Doctor Rashid Jamal at the government-run civil hospital Quetta confirmed the number of dead and wounded.

Quetta is the capital of the south-western province of Baluchistan, which borders Iran and Afghanistan and is rife with separatist and Islamist militants.

The province is also plagued by sectarian bloodshed and Quetta has been hit by numerous bomb attacks in recent years, including two devastating blasts early last year targeting minority Shi'ite Muslims.