KARACHI, Pakistan, April 26 - A suspected female suicide bomber killed three Chinese teachers in Karachi on Tuesday, police and officials said. In the first major attack.
Police and officials said the three were passengers of a minibus returning to Karachi University after a lunch break when a bomb exploded at the entrance to the university's Confucius Institute, killing Chinese teachers and a Pakistani. The citizen was killed.
The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group based in the southwestern province of Baluchistan bordering Afghanistan and Iran, claimed responsibility for the blast, adding in an email to Reuters that the attack was carried out by a female suicide bomber.
She shared a photo of herself in a long shawl with two children in the email. The photo could not be independently verified by police or other authorities.
Karachi Police Chief Ghulam Nabi Memnon said that the reports we have received are Chinese. He added that he is a teacher at the Confucius Institute, a Chinese language and cultural center.
"The information we have is that the attacker was probably a university student," Memnon told local Geo News TV.
A local guard and another Chinese national were also injured in the minibus.
Local media showed CCTV footage of a black-clad woman standing near the bus wearing a bag shortly before the bomb exploded and carrying clouds of fire and smoke.
Police did not confirm the footage.
Local media reported the wrecked minibus was made of knife holes, and eyewitnesses said the blast was so large that it shook the windows of other buildings on the sprawling campus.
It was the first major attack on Chinese nationals in Pakistan since July last year when a suicide bomber blew up a passenger bus in northern Pakistan, killing 13 people, including one working on a hydropower plant. The perpetrators included nine Chinese nationals.
Other attacks on Chinese working in Pakistan have taken place in Baluchistan Province, where separatist militants have been rebelling against authorities for decades.
The city of Gwadar in Baluchistan has a deep-water port which is being developed by Beijing under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project under President Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative to explore trade links with the rest of the world.
The incident is a major challenge for Pakistan's newly elected Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who has taken office this month. He condemned the cowardly act of terrorism.
"I am deeply saddened by the loss of precious lives, including our Chinese friends, in today's heinous attack in Karachi," Sharif said in a statement. He promised an early investigation.
Baloch separatist guerrillas, who say they are fighting for a greater share of the region's mining and mineral resources, usually attack gas projects, infrastructure and security forces.
They attack Chinese projects and workers despite Pakistan's assurances that it is doing everything possible to protect the projects.
Islamabad accuses rival India of backing insurgents, a charge New Delhi denies.
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