Balochistan is regularly hit by homegrown militancy and sectarian violence (Representational)

A bomb blast Sunday killed three paramilitary soldiers and wounded four others in Pakistan's troubled southwest, officials said.

The incident happened in Margat area on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of oil and gas-rich Balochistan province.

"An improvised explosive device planted along the road went off as a vehicle of Frontier Corps (FC) passed by, killing three soldiers and wounding four others," an FC spokesman told AFP on condition of anonymity.

Balochistan is regularly hit by homegrown militancy and sectarian violence.

Violence in Pakistan has however dropped significantly since the country's deadliest-ever militant attack, an assault on a school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in 2014 that killed more than 150 people, most of them children.

Pakistan's military intensified operations against militants in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan in the wake of that attack, leading to dramatic security improvements.