Suicide Bomber Crashes into Chinese Engineers Working in Pakistan, Killing 6

An unknown terrorist rammed a vehicle carrying explosives into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, on Tuesday, the latest in a growing number of attacks targeting China’s Belt and Road Initiative in the region.

China has invested heavily for the past decade in multiple road, port, and other projects in neighboring Pakistan as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), an international scheme to ensnare poor countries in crippling debt and use their financial misfortunes to erode their sovereignty. The overt goal of the BRI is to reconstruct the Ancient Silk Road connecting China to Europe; as a result, the sector of the BRI known as the “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” (CPEP) is of particular importance to the massive project.

The Chinese government has struggled with attacks by jihadists and separatist groups in the past five years in both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, where the Islamic State in particular has targeted Chinese businessmen and suspected Chinese assets.

No individual or group has taken responsibility for the attack on the Chinese engineers on Tuesday, the Chinese state outlet Xinhua reported on Wednesday morning.

The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported on Tuesday that, according to police authorities, “rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a convoy of Chinese engineers which was on its way from Islamabad to their camp in Dasu.”

The car in which the Chinese engineers were traveling caught fire, then fell down a gorge, resulting in the death of all in the car and complicating efforts to retrieve the bodies. Authorities have not named the victims publicly. Dawn reported, citing a source near Dasu, that the victims were four Chinese men, one Chinese woman, and their Pakistani driver.

The Chinese government is cooperating with Islamabad on the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in Dasu, where the engineers were heading.

Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the agency that represents the Pakistani military before the public, issued a statement condemning “certain foreign elements” for opposing projects such as the Dasu power plant in its statement on the terrorist attack on Tuesday. It did not offer any information regarding who the alleged “foreign elements” it implicated in the attack were – or if these “foreign elements” were believed to have any concrete involvement.

“Strategic projects and sensitive sites vital for Pakistan’s economic progress and the well-being of its people are being targeted as a conscious effort to retard our progress,” ISPR declared, “and sow discord between Pakistan and its strategic allies and partners, most notably China.”

“Certain foreign elements are complicit in aiding and abetting terrorism in Pakistan, driven by their vested interest,” the statement continued. “Despite the veneer of innocence, these elements are being continuously exposed as sponsors of terror.”

The Pakistani government has repeatedly accused the neighboring Taliban jihadists of Afghanistan of enabling terrorism across the border, particularly at the hands of the separate but allied Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani military conducted airstrikes inside Afghan territory on March 18, claiming them necessary to detain the spread of terrorist activity across the border. Taliban leaders claimed that Pakistan had “bombed the houses of civilians” rather than terrorist leaders and denied that their regime was offering a safe haven to international jihadists.

The Taliban maintains a friendly relationship with China, however, and has expressed eagerness publicly to join the BRI as the functional government of Afghanistan, making it an unlikely culprit in Tuesday’s attack. Pakistan has experienced several terrorist attacks against Chinese targets at the hands of a different violent organization, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), which advocates for the creation of a separate state for Pakistan’s ethnic Baloch minority.

In 2018, the BLA took responsibility for an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, claiming it was necessary to fight “Chinese occupation.” More recently, in 2022, the BLA claimed an attack by a female suicide bomber who blew herself up in front of the Confucius Institute at Karachi University.

In August, the BLA issued a statement claiming two assailants targeting a Chinese worker convoy en route to the Gwadar port project, the largest CPEC/BRI project in the country. The BLA targeted Gwadar again last week, killing two Pakistani soldiers.

The consistent threats to Chinese workers and the projects in the country, along with mounting political turmoil following the ouster and imprisonment of Islamist former Prime Minister Imran Khan, led China to pause new investment in BRI projects in Afghanistan in October, the Nikkei Asia Review reported in October.

The Pakistan Express Tribune reported on Tuesday that, in the aftermath of the latest attack, current Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to travel to China for in-person meetings as recently as this April.

“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to undertake an official visit to China next month as part of efforts to give a renewed push to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC),” the newspaper claimed, “but the latest terrorist attack is likely to overshadow the economic agenda.”

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