QUETTA, Oct 2: A bomb blast near the Friendship Gate on the Pak-Afghan border in Chaman left six people dead and 13 injured on Wednesday.

The dead included one Pakistani and five Afghan nationals, two of them security personnel. There were seven Frontier Corps personnel among the injured.

Some sources said that the blast was caused by a bomb placed on a donkey cart crossing into the Pakistani side from Afghanistan. But officials said it was a suicide bombing carried out by a man walking with the donkey cart.

(`It was a suicide bombing.

We have found the severed head on the blast site,` local border force commander Colonel Haider Ali told AFP.

`One FC (Frontier Corps) personnel and two civilians were martyred and 12 others were wounded,` he said, adding that the bomber had arrived at the border from Afghanistan.) According to other reports, the blast took place inside the Afghanistan territory close to the Friendship Gate.

The Frontier Corps closed the Pak-Afghan Friendship Gate after the blast.

The official who considered it to be a case of suicide bombing said the head and chained legs of a man had been found at the blast site.

Chaman Assistant Commissioner Ismail Ibrahim said an investigation was under way to determine the cause of the blast.

`We will be able to tell more about it after completion of the investigation,` he said.

According to an FC statement, Pakistani officials hadlodged their protest with Afghan officials over the incident and asked them to tighten border security so that such incidents do not recur.The injured FC personnel were taken to the Combined Military Hospital in Quetta in a helicopter, a spokesman of the paramilitary force, said.