[The assault took place at about 9 a.m., when the gunmen tried to enter the consulate, located in the city’s upscale Clifton area, but were stopped by police and security guards at the checkpoint, local police officials said.]
By Shaiq Hussain and Haq Nawaz
Khan
 |
ISLAMABAD,
Pakistan — A suicide bomber
killed at least 30 people at a market in northern Pakistan just hours after
gunmen assaulted the Chinese Consulate in the southern city of Karachi, killing
four.
The two attacks on opposite sides of the
country were likely unconnected, but they underlined the myriad security
challenges that Pakistan faces, including those from separatists as well as
from the Pakistani Taliban based in the northern border regions.
The attacker in the northern Orakzai district
drove a motorcycle into the heart of a weekly market in the town of Kalaya and
detonated his explosives, according to Reuters. Local health officials said that
at least 30 people were killed in the blast and that more than 50 others were
injured, 30 of them seriously. Authorities said most of the victims were
minority Shiite Muslims.
Pakistani authorities have long battled
militants in these remote regions near the Afghan border. The region has also
been marked by tension between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and the blast was near
a Shiite mosque that may have been the target.
Video images from the scene showed volunteers
and rescue officials recovering bodies from the weekly Friday market, where
people had been buying vegetables, household items and warm clothes when the
blast took place.
“There was a big bang that rocked the whole
town. Nothing was clear in the smoke, and there were cries and screams from the
market,” said Ashraf Ullah, 42, a local merchant. “Many bodies were
unrecognizable from damage by the blast. There were dead bodies all around.”
The blast came hours after police in Karachi
foiled a morning assault by three gunmen against the Chinese Consulate. The
attack left two police officers, two civilians and the gunmen dead.
The assault took place at about 9 a.m., when
the gunmen tried to enter the consulate, located in the city’s upscale Clifton
area, but were stopped by police and security guards at the checkpoint, local
police officials said.
In addition to the exchange of gunfire,
eyewitnesses told Pakistan’s Dawn news channel that they heard an explosion.
Footage broadcast on TV showed smoke rising from the Chinese Consulate
building.
“Three attackers have been killed in the
exchange of fire with our forces. All the Chinese diplomats and other staff at
the consulate are safe, and they remained unharmed during the attack,” Amir
Shaikh, a senior police official, told journalists on the scene. Because of the
quick response of police and guards, the terrorists could not reach the
diplomats, he said. He added that a search was still underway to determine
whether anyone else was involved.
According to Pakistani news channels, a
separatist group, the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), claimed responsibility
for the attack. The group opposes China’s projects in the province and has
previously attacked Chinese workers in Baluchistan, a Pakistani province at the
center of the mega-project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
The $62 billion port and transportation
corridor would connect far western China with the Indian Ocean via Kashmir’s
lofty mountain passes.
[Islamist terrorism wanes in Pakistan, but
religious fervor threatens national unity]
Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the
assault.
“The failed attack against the Chinese
Consulate was clearly a reaction to the unprecedented trade agreements that
resulted from our trip to China,” Khan said on Twitter. “The attack was
intended to scare Chinese investors and undermine CPEC. These terrorists will
not succeed.”
The attacks in both Karachi and the Orakzai
district “are part of a planned campaign to create unrest in the country by
those who do not want Pakistan to prosper,” Khan added. “Let there be no doubt
in anyone’s mind that we will crush the terrorists, whatever it takes.”
Earlier, Khan’s office said in a statement
that the Pakistani-Chinese relationship would never be undermined because it is
“mightier than Himalaya and deeper than Arabian Sea.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng
Shuang condemned the attack and demanded that “the Pakistani side take
practical measures to protect the safety of Chinese institutions in Pakistan.”
The embassy in Islamabad, meanwhile, stressed
the countries’ close ties, saying that “any attempt to undermine the
China-Pakistan relationship is doomed to fail.”
Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Lahore-based security
analyst, said the attack was aimed at just that, disrupting ties between the
two countries. He noted that Chinese nationals have been attacked in the past.
“The terrorists want to create panic and
fear, and an attack on a diplomatic mission creates international headlines,”
he said. “Such attacks show the threat of terror is still very much there, and
it’s far from over.”
Haq Nawaz Khan reported from Peshawar,
Pakistan. Gerry Shih in Hong Kong contributed to this report.
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