A Pakistani separatist group claimed responsibility for a late-night bombing that targeted a convoy with Chinese nationals outside the nation’s largest airport, killing two workers from China and wounding eight people, officials and the insurgent group said yesterday.
The attack by the Baloch Liberation Army outside the airport in the southern port city of Karachi was the latest deadly assault on Chinese in the nation and came a week before Pakistan is to host a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security grouping founded by China and Russia to counter Western alliances.
Initially, Pakistani authorities gave conflicting details and indicated the explosion might have been from an oil tanker, but police later confirmed it was a bomb attack.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Pakistani news channels broadcast videos of flames engulfing vehicles and a thick column of smoke rising from the scene. Troops and police cordoned off the area.
Counterterrorism officials yesterday were investigating how the attacker reached Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
Among the wounded were also police officers who were escorting the Chinese convoy when the attack happened.
A spokesman for the separatist group, Junaid Baloch, yesterday said that one of its suicide bombers targeted the convoy of Chinese engineers and investors as they left the airport.
The Baloch Liberation Army is mainly based in restive southwestern Balochistan Province, but it has also attacked foreigners and security forces in other parts of Pakistan.
The Chinese embassy in Islamabad said Chinese staffers working at Port Qasim Electric Power Co — a coal-powered power plant that is a joint China-Pakistan venture — were in the convoy when it came under attack at about 11pm. Two Chinese nationals were killed and one was wounded, the embassy said, adding that there were also Pakistani casualties, but it did not elaborate.
The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced the bombing, saying it was a “heinous terrorist attack near Karachi airport.”
It said another Chinese was injured in the attack.
“We extend our deepest condolences and sympathies to the families of the victims, both Chinese and Pakistani, and offer prayers for the swift recovery of the injured,” the ministry said in a statement.
“We remain resolute in bringing to justice those responsible for this cowardly attack,” it added.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was shocked and saddened by the attack. He said the attackers were “enemies of Pakistan” and promised the perpetrators would be punished.
“I strongly condemn this heinous act and offer my heartfelt condolences to the Chinese leadership & the people of China, particularly the families of the victims,” he wrote on social media. “Pakistan stands committed to safeguarding our Chinese friends. We will leave no stone unturned to ensure their security & well-being.”
Pakistan hosts thousands of Chinese workers as part of Beijing’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative, which is building major infrastructure projects. The outlawed separatist group, which has long waged an insurgency seeking independence for Balochistan, has repeatedly warned against any Chinese working in Balochistan.
Oil and mineral-rich Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest, but least populated province. It is also a hub for the nation’s ethnic Baloch minority, whose members say they face discrimination and exploitation by the central government. That has fueled a separatist insurgency demanding independence. Islamic militants also operate in the province.
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