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5 Chinese language employees have been killed on Tuesday when a suicide bomber rammed a automobile into their convoy in northern Pakistan, the most recent in a string of terrorist assaults highlighting the safety challenges Pakistan faces in defending Chinese language personnel.
The Chinese language laborers have been engaged on the Dasu dam, a hydropower venture on the Indus River within the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The convoy was shifting to Dasu from Islamabad and got here underneath assault round 1 p.m., officers mentioned.
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, principally to construct a transportation hall by means of Baluchistan to a brand new Chinese language-operated deepwater port within the Pakistani city of Gwadar.
It was the second-deadliest assault on Chinese language laborers engaged on the dam venture, after a earlier suicide assault on a convoy in 2021 killed 9 Chinese language employees. There was no speedy declare of accountability for the assault on Tuesday. The driving force of the automobile was additionally killed.
“This newest assault on Chinese language nationals in Pakistan heightens rising fears in Beijing concerning the bleak way forward for its tens of billions in investments within the nation,” mentioned Kamran Bokhari, a senior director of Eurasian safety and prosperity on the New Traces Institute in Washington.
“China has had a front-row seat in witnessing Pakistan’s social, political, financial and safety meltdown,” he mentioned. “What is occurring in Pakistan, together with the scenario in post-U.S. Afghanistan, represents a severe menace to Chinese language pursuits within the broader South and Central Asian areas.”
The assaults over the previous week have 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.
A lot 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 Military, a militant separatist group that operates primarily in Baluchistan Province.
Baluch separatists have focused Chinese language employees in recent times, claiming that they’re pillaging pure sources like gold and entry to the ocean that ought to solely belong to the individuals of Baluchistan.
The Pakistani Taliban has shut ties to a militant group often known as the East Turkestan Islamic Motion, which seeks independence for Uyghur Muslims in China. As a part of that relationship, the Pakistani Taliban has carried out assaults on Chinese language pursuits in Pakistan in response to Beijing’s therapy of Uyghurs.
A U.N. monitoring report in January famous issues concerning the East Turkestan Islamic Motion extra carefully collaborating with the Pakistani Taliban in latest months “in recruitment, coaching, planning assaults and posing a regional menace.”
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 protected 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 practically two years.
“The surge in violence is linked to Pakistan’s deteriorating ties with the Taliban,” mentioned Abdul Basit, a analysis fellow on the S. Rajaratnam Faculty of Worldwide Research in Singapore. “The brand new wave of violence additionally factors to bettering operational capabilities of each jihadists and Baloch separatist teams to hit laborious targets in coordinated assaults. Each teams are using suicide bombers, which underscores regular recruitment into their ranks.”
The assault on Tuesday befell alongside the Karakoram Freeway, which hyperlinks Islamabad, the capital, with the mountainous northern area of Gilgit-Baltistan and China, following one of many historic Silk Highway’s many routes.
The Chinese language nationals have been touring alongside the freeway in a safety convoy when a automobile laden with explosives rammed into it, based on Bilal Faizi, the spokesman for emergency rescue companies within the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.
Sooner or later earlier, Baluch separatists attacked a Pakistani naval base, P.N.S. Siddique, within the Turbat district of Baluchistan Province. The Pakistan navy mentioned that 4 closely armed attackers had been unable to breach safety and have been killed on the outer boundary of the bottom. Two Pakistani troopers have been killed within the firefight. The Baluchistan Liberation Military claimed accountability for the assault.
On March 20, two Pakistani troopers have been killed when Baluch separatists attacked Pakistani navy intelligence workplaces 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 have been killed after a firefight that lasted a number of hours, officers mentioned.
In response to Tuesday’s assault, Pakistani officers vowed to research the incident and produce these behind the assaults to justice.
After visiting the Chinese language Embassy in Islamabad on Tuesday, Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi, the minister for inside and narcotic management, mentioned that the federal government would “take care of the weather concerned within the assault with iron palms.”
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif additionally visited the embassy and expressed condolences, China’s Ministry of International Affairs mentioned in a press release. The ministry condemned the assault and urged Pakistan to “totally examine the incident as quickly as potential, seek out the perpetrators and produce them to justice.”
It added: “Any try and undermine China-Pakistan cooperation won’t ever succeed.”
Amy Chang Chien, Zia ur-Rehman and Chris Buckley contributed reporting.
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