A remote-controlled bomb targeting a police van exploded in southwest Pakistan on Monday, killing two boys and wounding 17 others including a senior police official, police said.

The bomb was planted on a motorbike parked in a commercial area of Dera Murad Jamali, a town 400 kilometres (250 miles) southwest of Quetta, capital of Baluchistan province, local police chief Abdul Haye Baluch told AFP.

It was a small bomb containing three kilograms of explosives, he said.

Baluchistan suffers from violence linked to the Taliban, sectarian extremists and Baluch rebels, who rose up in 2004 for political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's oil, gas and mineral deposits.

"The target was apparently a police van," the police officer said.

Two boys aged about 12 were killed, he said. Another 15 people were wounded, including a police guard and a senior police official he said.

The Baluch Republican Army, separatists fighting for an independent Baluchistan, claimed responsibility for the blast.

"The policemen were our target. We attacked them because of the killing of Baluch people," Sarbaz Baloch, a spokesman for the group, told AFP.

"Everybody who works with the (security) forces, is a target," he added.