EGN NEWS DESK
At least 5 Chinese employees had been killed on Tuesday when a suicide bomber rammed a car into their convoy in northern Pakistan, officers stated. Their Pakistani driver was additionally killed within the assault.
There was no instant declare of accountability.
The Chinese laborers had been engaged on the Dasu dam, a hydropower challenge on the Indus River within the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The convoy was transferring from Islamabad to Dasu and got here below assault round 1 p.m., officers stated.
This was the second-deadliest assault on Chinese engaged on the challenge, after a earlier suicide assault on a convoy in 2021.
Pakistan and China have shut financial and strategic ties, and China is estimated to have spent some $62 billion on these initiatives in Pakistan, largely to construct a transportation hall via Baluchistan to a brand new Chinese-operated deepwater port within the Pakistani city of Gwadar.
“This newest assault on Chinese nationals in Pakistan heightens rising fears in Beijing in regards to the bleak way forward for its tens of billions in investments within the nation,” stated Kamran Bokhari, a senior director of Eurasian safety and prosperity on the New Lines Institute in Washington.
“China has had a front-row seat in witnessing Pakistan’s social, political, financial and safety meltdown,” he stated. “What is going on in Pakistan, together with the scenario in post-U.S. Afghanistan, represents a severe risk to Chinese pursuits within the broader South and Central Asian areas.”
There has been a spike in terror assaults in Pakistan in current days, signaling the grim safety scenario within the nation, which is reeling from each political and financial crises and rising tensions with neighboring Afghanistan. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have soured since a Pakistani determination final 12 months to deport undocumented overseas nationals, largely Afghans.
Earlier this month, Pakistan additionally bombed Pakistani Taliban targets inside Afghanistan.
On Monday night time, Baluch separatists attacked a Pakistani naval base, P.N.S. Siddique, within the Turbat district. The Pakistan army stated that 4 closely armed attackers had been unable to breach safety and had been killed on the outer boundary of the bottom. Two Pakistani troopers had been killed within the firefight. The Baluchistan Liberation Army claimed accountability for the assault.
Earlier, on March 20, two Pakistani troopers had been killed when Baluch separatists attacked Pakistani army intelligence places of work in Gwadar, the southwestern metropolis the place Pakistan is creating a port with the assistance of China. Eight closely armed gunmen tried to enter the Gwadar Port Authority and had been killed after a firefight that lasted a number of hours, officers stated.
Analysts stated the assaults pointed to large inside safety failures and regional tensions.
“The surge in violence is linked to Pakistan’s deteriorating ties with the Taliban,” Abdul Basit, a analysis fellow on the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, stated. “The new wave of violence additionally factors to bettering operational capabilities of each jihadists and Baloch separatist teams to hit exhausting targets in coordinated assaults. Both teams are using suicide bombers, which underscores regular recruitment into their ranks,” he stated.
In a press release, the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad stated it “strongly condemns this terrorist act, expresses deep condolences for the victims in each international locations, and extends honest condolences to the family of the victims. The embassy is working with Pakistan to totally perform the dealing with after the incident.”
Amy Chang Chien contributed reporting.
