A van driven by a suicide bomber exploded after ramming through a gate at the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan yesterday, injuring three people, authorities said.
“As a result of the explosion, only the suicide bomber terrorist died. Security guards were injured,” Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Jenish Razakov told reporters at the scene.
Razakov said the three wounded were all Kyrgyz employees of the embassy and that they had been hospitalized.
Photo: AP
Local medics said their injuries were not serious.
Impoverished majority-Muslim Kyrgyzstan — which borders western China — has a history of political instability and battling Muslim extremism.
Authorities said the country faces the threat of attacks from the Islamic State group after about 500 Kyrgyz left to fight for the group in Iraq and Syria.
Chinese officials have previously been targeted in attacks linked to Uighur militants based in China’s restive Xinjiang Province.
Law enforcement sources told reporters that a Mitsubishi Delica van smashed through a gate at the embassy yesterday morning before exploding in the center of the compound close to the ambassador’s residence.
A police source confirmed to reporters that the vehicle was driven by a suicide bomber and described the incident as a “terrorist attack.”
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the attack as an “extreme and violent act,” but refused to classify it as terrorism.
“We asked the Kyrgyz side to get to the bottom of this incident and hold whoever is behind this accountable,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩) said.
Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev ordered a “thorough investigation.”
Kyrgyz police sources said body parts thought to be from the attacker were found several hundred meters from the blast site.
Local residents told reporters that the blast had blown in their windows and caused their houses to shake.
A reporter close to the scene said that damage could be seen on the embassy buildings and that police had cordoned off the area as emergency services worked.
Law enforcement officials also blocked traffic on one of the city’s main highways and were checking vehicles.
Employees from the Chinese and nearby US embassy on the edge of the city were evacuated, the Kyrgyz emergency service said.
An economically troubled ally of Russia, Kyrgyzstan has seen two governments overthrown and ethnic violence claim hundreds of lives since it gained independence in 1991.
The authorities regularly announce that they have foiled attacks planned by the Islamic State in the country.
Chinese officials in Kyrgyzstan have previously been targeted, with one shot dead in 2000 in an attack blamed on radicals from the Uighur minority.
In 2014 Kyrgyz authorities said they killed 11 people, including Uighur rebels, trying to cross into the country.
Kyrgyzstan is gearing up to mark 25 years since independence from the former Soviet Union with celebrations in Bishkek today.
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