Baloch Liberation Army threatens Beijing with “even tougher” attacks unless China stops “exploitation projects” in Pakistan.
A Pakistani separatist group warned on Wednesday of more violent attacks on Chinese targets, a day after a suicide bomber. killed three Chinese teachers posted from Beijing to the southern city of Karachi.
The Baloch Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the attack that killed three Chinese professors and a Pakistani driver near the gate of the Confucius Institute at Karachi University.
A bomber detonated explosives next to his minibus.
“Hundreds of highly trained male and female members of the Baloch Liberation Army Majeed Brigade are ready to carry out deadly attacks anywhere in Balochistan and Pakistan,” a spokesman for the group, Jeeyand Baloch, said in a statement posted on English.
The spokesman threatened Beijing with “even tougher” attacks unless China stops the “exploitation projects” and “occupation of the Pakistani state.”
Chinese citizens and business and investment interests have come under regular attack from separatists in Balochistan, where Beijing is involved in lucrative mining and energy projects Baloch separatist fighters have been fighting for a bigger share of his province’s natural resources for decades, focusing primarily on attacks on natural gas projects, infrastructure, and security forces.
In recent years, the group has begun targeting Chinese projects and workers.
A university security official said he had previously raised concerns about the safety of the 15 Chinese employees on campus.
“Reports emerged in February that an attack could be carried out on the campus,” the source, who asked not to be identified, told the AFP news agency.
The attacker was identified as Shaari Baloch, 30 years olda married mother of an eight-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy, the Baluchi group said, adding that she was a science teacher and studying for a master’s degree at university.
Suicide attacks by women are very rare in Pakistan, reported only four times in recent years.
China’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the attack on its citizens and demanded that Pakistan punish the perpetrators and prevent such incidents from happening again.
“Belt and Road”
Baluchistan and its deepwater port in Gwadar are an important link in China belt and road network of infrastructure and energy projects that stretches to the Middle East and beyond.
In april 2021A suicide bombing at a luxury hotel housing the Chinese ambassador in Quetta, the provincial capital of Baluchistan, has killed four people and wounded dozens.
The ambassador was unharmed in that attack, which was claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.
In July last year, a bus carrying engineers to a construction site near a dam in northwest Pakistan was hit by a bomb that killed 13 people, including nine Chinese workers.
The attack, which went unclaimed, upset relations between Islamabad and Beijing, with Pakistan later paying millions in compensation to the families of the slain Chinese workers.