Five Chinese employees had been killed on Tuesday when a suicide bomber rammed a car into their convoy in northern Pakistan, the most recent in a string of terrorist assaults highlighting the safety challenges Pakistan faces in defending Chinese personnel.
The Chinese laborers had been engaged on the Dasu dam, a hydropower mission on the Indus River within the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The convoy was transferring to Dasu from Islamabad and got here below assault round 1 p.m., officers stated.
Over the previous week, terrorist assaults additionally struck a Pakistani navy air base and a strategic port within the southwest of the nation, the place China has invested billions in infrastructure tasks. The string of assaults has challenged the shut financial and strategic ties between the 2 nations.
China is estimated to have spent some $62 billion on tasks in Pakistan, largely to construct a transportation hall via Baluchistan to a brand new Chinese-operated deepwater port within the Pakistani city of Gwadar.
It was the second-deadliest assault on Chinese laborers engaged on the dam mission, after a earlier suicide assault on a convoy in 2021 killed 9 Chinese employees. There was no instant declare of accountability for the assault on Tuesday. The driver of the car was additionally killed.
“This latest attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan heightens growing fears in Beijing about the bleak future of its tens of billions in investments in the country,” 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, economic and security meltdown,” he stated. “What is happening in Pakistan, along with the situation in post-U.S. Afghanistan, represents a serious threat to Chinese interests in the broader South and Central Asian regions.”
The assaults over the previous week had been a part of the surging violence from militant and terrorist teams in Pakistan, which have grown extra lively and violent since U.S. troops withdrew from neighboring Afghanistan in 2021 and the Taliban seized energy.
Much of the violence has been carried out by the Pakistani Taliban, an ideological ally and twin of the Taliban in Afghanistan, in addition to the Baluchistan Liberation Army, a militant separatist group that operates primarily in Baluchistan Province.
Baluch separatists have focused Chinese employees in recent times, claiming that they’re pillaging pure sources like gold and entry to the ocean that ought to completely belong to the folks of Baluchistan.
The Pakistani Taliban has shut ties to a militant group often called the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which seeks independence for Uyghur Muslims in China. As a part of that relationship, the Pakistani Taliban has carried out assaults on Chinese pursuits in Pakistan in response to Beijing’s remedy of Uyghurs.
A U.N. monitoring report in January famous issues in regards to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement extra carefully collaborating with the Pakistani Taliban in latest months “in recruitment, training, planning attacks and posing a regional threat.”
The latest uptick in militant violence in Pakistan has added to the political and financial crises the nation has confronted over the previous two years. It has additionally spurred rising stress in neighboring Afghanistan with its Taliban leaders, who Pakistani officers have accused of providing secure haven to the militants finishing up the assaults in Pakistan. Taliban officers have denied these claims.
Tensions between the 2 nations have come to a head in latest months. In September, Pakistani officers introduced a brand new coverage geared toward deporting the roughly 1.7 million Afghans dwelling within the nation illegally. Earlier this month, Pakistan additionally bombed Pakistani Taliban targets inside Afghanistan for the primary time in almost two years.
“The surge in violence is linked to Pakistan’s deteriorating ties with the Taliban,” stated Abdul Basit, a analysis fellow on the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. “The new wave of violence also points to improving operational capabilities of both jihadists and Baloch separatist groups to hit hard targets in coordinated attacks. Both groups are employing suicide bombers, which underscores steady recruitment into their ranks.”
The assault on Tuesday happened alongside the Karakoram Highway, which hyperlinks Islamabad, the capital, with the mountainous northern area of Gilgit-Baltistan and China, following one of many historic Silk Road’s many routes.
The Chinese nationals had been touring alongside the freeway in a safety convoy when a car laden with explosives rammed into it, in accordance with Bilal Faizi, the spokesman for emergency rescue providers within the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.
One day earlier, Baluch separatists attacked a Pakistani naval base, P.N.S. Siddique, within the Turbat district of Baluchistan Province. The Pakistan navy 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.
On March 20, two Pakistani troopers had been killed when Baluch separatists attacked Pakistani navy intelligence places of work in Gwadar, the southwestern metropolis the place Pakistan is growing 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.
In response to Tuesday’s assault, Pakistani officers vowed to analyze the incident and produce these behind the assaults to justice.
After visiting the Chinese embassy in Islamabad on Tuesday, Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi, the minister for inside and narcotic management, stated that the federal government would “deal with the elements involved in the attack with iron hands.”
In an announcement, the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad stated it “strongly condemns this terrorist act, expresses deep condolences for the victims in both countries, and extends sincere condolences to the relatives of the victims. The embassy is working with Pakistan to fully carry out the handling after the incident.”
Amy Chang Chien and Zia ur-Rehman contributed reporting.
Source: www.nytimes.com