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.
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
Ten cheetah cubs held in captivity since birth and destined for international wildlife trade markets have been rescued in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. They were all in stable condition despite all of them having been undernourished and limping due to being tied in captivity for months, said Laurie Marker, founder of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, which is caring for the cubs. One eight-month-old cub was unable to walk after been tied up for six months, while a five-month-old was “very malnourished [a bag of bones], with sores all over her body and full of botfly maggots which are under the
BRUSHED OFF: An ambassador to Australia previously said that Beijing does not see a reason to apologize for its naval exercises and military maneuvers in international areas China set off alarm bells in New Zealand when it dispatched powerful warships on unprecedented missions in the South Pacific without explanation, military documents showed. Beijing has spent years expanding its reach in the southern Pacific Ocean, courting island nations with new hospitals, freshly paved roads and generous offers of climate aid. However, these diplomatic efforts have increasingly been accompanied by more overt displays of military power. Three Chinese warships sailed the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand in February, the first time such a task group had been sighted in those waters. “We have never seen vessels with this capability
RSS