A suicide bomber on Tuesday rammed a vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on the Dasu Hydropower Project undertaken by a Chinese company in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif chaired an emergency meeting with senior officials on Wednesday. Sharif pledged to utilize all national resources to conduct a thorough and joint investigation of the attack and assured the bereaved families that the perpetrators would be brought to justice swiftly. On the same day, Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari visited the Chinese embassy in Islamabad to convey condolences over the lives lost.

The country’s National Assembly said in a statement that China is a sincere and trusted friend of Pakistan and the attack on Chinese citizens is intolerable.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said such dastardly acts cannot dent the resolve of the Pakistani nation to fight against the scourge of terrorism.

“Today’s attack was orchestrated by the enemies of Pakistan-China friendship,” it said in a statement. “We will resolutely act against all such forces and defeat them.”

Emphasizing that the life and safety of Chinese nationals in Pakistan are of paramount importance, it said Pakistan will continue to work with their Chinese brothers to ensure the safety and security of Chinese nationals, projects and institutions in the country.

On-site security forces are stepping up efforts to deal with the aftermath of the attack, General Syed Asim Munir, chief of army staff of Pakistan, said on Tuesday during a phone call with Beijing’s envoy to Islamabad Jiang Zaidong.

Thorough probe

The Pakistani military will thoroughly investigate the attack and keep China informed of the progress of the investigation in a timely manner, Munir said.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi said the enemy has targeted citizens of a very reliable friend of Pakistan, and that the attack is not just on Chinese citizens but on Pakistan itself. The country is bound to strongly respond to the attack, he added.

Terrorists attempted to damage Pakistan-China relations through such an outrageous act, and Pakistan would never allow such incidents to occur, said Sarfraz Bugti, chief minister of the southwestern province of Balochistan.

Former Pakistani caretaker prime minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said Pakistan and China will jointly overcome the challenge and maintain a solid bond of bilateral friendship and cooperation.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, co-chair of the Pakistan People’s Party and former foreign minister, said he believes plotters and accomplices of the attack will be severely punished.

In addition, local politicians, media and think tanks in Pakistan also strongly denounced the attack.

On Wednesday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said terrorism is a common enemy of humanity, and it is a shared responsibility of the international community to fight terrorism and ensure such tragedies do not happen again.

“China firmly supports Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts and firmly safeguards the safety of Chinese citizens, institutions and projects abroad,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a news conference.

China and Pakistan are determined to and capable of making the terrorists pay for their actions, he said.

Noting that the two countries are all-weather strategic cooperative partners that enjoy “ironclad” friendship, Lin said any attempt to undermine bilateral cooperation will fail.

China will “firmly carry out cooperation in various fields with Pakistan to benefit people on both sides”, he said.

Some countries have condemned the terrorist attack and extended their condolences to the Chinese victims, which China appreciates, he said.

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The unidentified armed men opened fire inside the multi-storey Kabul Longan Hotel in central Kabul on Monday, with witnesses reporting multiple blasts and several bursts of gunfire.

The attack has now ended and no foreigners were killed, although two of them were injured while trying escape the attack by jumping from the hotel balcony, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Kabul’s Emergency Hospital, run by an Italian non-profit near the attacked hotel in the Shahr-e-Naw area, reported receiving 21 casualties –  18 injured and three dead on arrival.

While the firing was continuing inside the hotel, a fire broke out on one of its floors, sources told the Reuters news agency.

A video posted on Twitter by a journalist in Kabul, verified by Reuters, showed smoke billowing out of the building.

The attack took place around 2:30pm local time (10:00 GMT) when armed men targeted the hotel where “common people were staying”, Kabul police spokesman Khalid Zadran said, adding that forces were trying to secure the area.

Residents of the area said the attack was carried out at a building where Chinese and other foreigners usually stay. The shooting continued after they heard a powerful explosion, they said.

A view of the Kabul Longan Hotel in the Shahr-e-Naw neighbourhood of Kabul, 
Afghanistan [Reuters]

The attack came a day after China’s ambassador met the Afghan deputy foreign minister to discuss security-related matters and sought more attention on the security of its embassy.

China’s state-run Xinhua news agency reported that the attack took place near a Chinese guesthouse and that its embassy in Kabul was closely monitoring the situation.

China, which shares a rugged 76-km (47-mile) border with Afghanistan, has not officially recognised the Taliban government but is one of the few countries to maintain a diplomatic presence there.

Several bombing and shooting attacks have taken place in Afghanistan in recent months, some of which have been claimed by the ISIL (ISIS) armed group.

The Taliban, who seized power after United States-led foreign forces withdrew in August 2021, have said they are focused on securing the country.

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In the city of Karachi, a woman suicide bomber affiliated with the Baloch Liberation Army targeted a vehicle on Tuesday, causing the casualties, the group said.

Muqadas Haider, a police official, told reporters that three of the deceased were Chinese teachers; two of them women.

At least three others were wounded in the incident near the gate of the China-built Confucius Institute, a Chinese language learning center located inside the University of Karachi.

The “Baloch Liberation Army accepts the responsibility for today’s self-sacrificing attack on Chinese in Karachi”, the separatist group’s spokesperson, Jeeyand Baloch, said in a statement published in English on Telegram.

The mission was the first to be carried out by a female operative, he added.

Deadly attack

Closed-circuit television footage from the site showed a person in the burqa covering head to toe walking up to the van struck by the explosion, Karachi police chief Ghulam Nabi Memon had said earlier.

Television footage showed plumes of smoke billowing high from the van as security forces cordoned off the area. The explosion also damaged motorcycles parked nearby, as well as windowpanes of buildings in the vicinity.

The Baloch separatists usually attack the army, government officials, gas projects and Chinese interests. They have stepped up attacks in recent months.

All-weather allies Beijing and Islamabad cooperate in the multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor project, which the Baloch insurgents see as an attempt to steal their resources.

Signed in 2014, the $64 billion projects, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, aims to connect mainland China to Gwadar port in Balochistan.

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