A car packed with explosives went off near a bus that was carrying Chinese engineers to a port project in remote southwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing three of them and injuring 11 other people, police and hospital officials said.
The attack occurred just after 9am as the bus was taking at least 12 Chinese to the Gawadar port, about 500km west of Karachi, near the border with Iran, said Sattar Lasi, the chief of police in Gawadar.
"A car was parked near the port and it exploded as the bus reached the port," Lasi said.
"This is clearly terrorism. The aim was to terrorize the Chinese working at the Gawadar port," said Lal Jan, a police deputy superintendent in Gawadar.
Shoaib Suddle, the police chief in Baluchishtan province, said it appeared the bomb was set off by remote control, but that authorities were still looking into the possibility of a suicide attack.
Lasi said authorities had not found the remains of any bomber inside the white Suzuki car, although the force of the blast would have made it hard to determine whether someone was inside. Only the skeleton of the car remained, and the bus was also heavily damaged, with windows shattered and metal twisted, he said.
Ghafoor Baluch, a fisherman who lives near the scene of the attack, said the explosion shook the walls of his home.
"We saw pieces of metal from the car strewn on the beach and stuck in nearby trees," he said.
The explosion left a 1m crater and smashed the front of the bus, he said.
Eleven people were injured -- nine of them Chinese, Lasi said. The others were a Pakistani driver and security guard.
The motive for the attack was not immediately clear. Islamic militant groups have targeted foreigners in the past, but never in such a remote part of the country.
Several nationalist groups have also expressed opposition to the project at Gawadar, which aims to develop a deep sea port that will ultimately provide a second option to the heavily trafficked Karachi port terminal.
China is Pakistan's most important ally and one of its chief trading partners.
The Chinese Embassy was closed yesterday, a holiday in Pakistan marking the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, but a duty officer who identified himself as Cai said the embassy was monitoring the situation closely. He had no additional information.
The Chinese all worked for China Harbor Engineering Co in a project to develop the Gawadar seaport on the Arabian Sea. It was not clear how long they had been in the country.
The company asked Pakistani authorities to increase security, but said it had no plans to suspend work on the project.
"We will continue our work at Gawadar port," said Sun Xiyo, general manager of the company in Gawadar.
He said more than 400 Chinese engineers and construction workers are in the Pakistani town working on the project.
Masood Ahmed, a doctor at the state-run Civil Hospital in Gawadar, said three of the injured were in serious condition.
Pakistan has been relatively peaceful in recent months, but there have been some close calls. A powerful bomb was found and defused outside the US Consulate in Karachi in March.
On May 8, 2002, a suicide bomber attacked a bus carrying French engineers outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi, killing 11.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
A feud has broken out between the top leaders of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on whether to maintain close ties with Russia. The AfD leader Alice Weidel this week slammed planned visits to Russia by some party lawmakers, while coleader Tino Chrupalla voiced a defense of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The unusual split comes at a time when mainstream politicians have accused the anti-immigration AfD of acting as stooges for the Kremlin and even spying for Russia. The row has also erupted in a year in which the AfD is flying high, often polling above the record 20 percent it
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS