Pakistani Taliban militants on Tuesday said they detonated a roadside bomb targeting members of the Shi'ite minority that killed at least 10 people travelling in a minibus, and wounded several more, in a remote northwestern region.

Militants planted the explosive device in the Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan, said senior regional official Shahid Ali Khan.

"When the passengers were coming, they detonated the remote-controlled bomb," Khan, who is the assistant political agent for Kurram Agency, told Reuters.

Many of the 13 wounded were taken to hospital in the nearby town of Parachinar, Khan said. The military also sent a helicopter to evacuate the wounded to the key city of Peshawar.

A spokesman for the Jamaat-ur-Ahrar, a faction of the Islamist militant Pakistani Taliban group, said the explosive device had been intended to target the country's Shia minority and workers in the area carrying out a census.

Read more:  Reuters