At least seven people were killed, including two policemen and two civilians, in an attack today against the chinese consulate perpetrated by several armed men in the city of Karachi, the economic centre of Pakistan and located in the south of the country. “Three or four armed men tried to break into the chinese consulate and when they were intercepted began to fire on the Police guarding the complex,” said to Efe the police spokesman, Mohammad Ishfaq. The attack began shortly before 9.30 am local time, when the attackers began to shoot and throw grenades. According to this source, the assault has already been neutralized by the security forces. “The operation has finished,” said Ishfaq, who stated that terrorists were not able to enter the consulate. Ishfaq said that three attackers and two police officers have been killed in the attack, and a security guard was injured.
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Seemi Jamali, a spokesperson for the Hospital Jinnah, where they transferred to the deceased, told Efe that in addition to the bodies of two police officers, have also received dead bodies of two civilians, a father and his son who had gone to the consulate to apply for a visa. “All of the staff chinese consulate are safe,” stressed the spokesman.
The Liberation Army, Baloch, which seeks the independence of the southwest province of Baluchistan, claimed responsibility for the attack against the consulate. “The goal of the attack is clear: we will not tolerate chinese military expansion in soil baloch,” said the group in a press release. The Foreign minister of pakistan, Shah Mehmood Qureshi condemned the attack. “It is an incident of sad. Pakistan and Betxlarge China will defeat the forces that want to stop development” in the country, said Qureshi.
China has a large presence in pakistani territory due to the project Economic Corridor China-Pakistan (CPEC), a multi-billion dollar infrastructure project funded by Beijing with an investment of 60,000 million dollars. The CPEC program, launched in 2015, will fund the construction of a trade route that will connect the city of Kasghar, in the province of northwest china’s Xinjiang, with the port pakistan Gwadar (south-west) in Balochistan, giving the chinese giant a gateway to the Arabian sea.
In June of 2017, the terrorist group the Islamic State announced it had killed two chinese citizens in the region of Balochistan. In may of that year, eleven workers working on the construction of a road linked to the CPEC, were killed in the district of Gwadar.
Also today, at least 20 people were killed and 25 other injured in a bomb attack in a bazaar in the tribal belt of northwest Pakistan. In the explosion in the bazaar Kalaya “killed 20 people and another 25 were injured,” said to Efe a spokesman of the administration of the area, Mohamed Bilal.
The source indicated that the bazaar was crowded with people when the blast occurred around 10: 00 a.m., local time, at the agency’s tribal Orakzai. “It was a terrorist attack, but it is not clear if it was an improvised explosive device (IED) or a suicide bomber,” he said.
