A Pakistani separatist group has claimed responsibility for a bombing that targeted a Chinese convoy outside the country’s largest airport, killing two workers from China and wounding eight people, officials said.
The attack by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) outside the airport in the southern port city of Karachi was the latest deadly assault on Chinese people in Pakistan, and comes a week before the country hosts a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a security grouping founded by China and Russia to counter Western alliances.
The explosion, which the BLA said was the work of a suicide bomber, also raised questions about the ability of Pakistani forces to secure high-profile events involving foreigners in the country.
Among the wounded were police officers who were escorting the Chinese convoy when the attack happened.
Initially, Pakistani authorities gave conflicting details and said the explosion may have involved an oil tanker, but police later confirmed it was a bombing.
Pakistani news channels broadcast videos of flames engulfing cars and a thick column of smoke rising from the scene.
Troops and police cordoned off the area, and counter-terrorism officials are investigating how the attacker reached Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city.
A spokesman for the separatist group, Junaid Baloch, said that one of their suicide bombers targeted the convoy of Chinese engineers and investors as they left the airport.
The BLA is mainly based in the restive south-western Balochistan province but it has also attacked foreigners and security forces in other parts of Pakistan in recent years.
The Chinese embassy in Islamabad said Chinese staff working at the Port Qasim Electric Power Company – a coal-powered power plant that is a joint China-Pakistan venture – were in the convoy when it came under attack around 11pm on Sunday night.
Two Chinese nationals were killed and one was wounded, the embassy said and added, without elaborating, that there were also Pakistani casualties.
Pakistani security officials say a police bomb disposal unit in Sindh province, where Karachi is the capital, had cleared the road outside the airport ahead of the movement of the Chinese convoy, which was being escorted by police and security officials in several vehicles.
However, the road had not been blocked to avoid inconvenience for residents and travellers going to or from the airport, the officials said.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry denounced the bombing, saying it was a “heinous terrorist attack near Karachi airport.” It said another Chinese person was injured in the attack.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said he was shocked and saddened, describing the attackers as “enemies of Pakistan” and promising 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 the social media platform X.
“Pakistan stands committed to safeguarding our Chinese friends,” he added. “We will leave no stone unturned to ensure their security & well-being.”
