ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s new foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Wednesday expressed regret over the loss of life in a suicide attack in Karachi that targeted Chinese nationals, saying it was a “failed attempt” by militants to damage the longstanding relations between the two countries.
Bhutto-Zardari issued the statement while visiting the Chinese embassy in Islamabad soon after taking oath to his office which made him the youngest foreign minister in his country’s history.
Four people, including three Chinese nationals, were killed in a deadly suicide bombing in front of Karachi University’s Confucius Institute, a Chinese cultural center, which was later claimed by the separatist Baloch Liberation Army (BLA).
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also directed the authorities to increase the security of Chinese residents and institutions in Pakistan.
“The relationship between Pakistan and China is a series of loyalties from generation to generation,” the foreign minister said. “Terrorists made a failed attempt to strike at the foundation of China-Pakistan friendship.”
He added such malicious intentions of militants would not sabotage the relationship between the two countries.
Baloch nationalist groups have regularly targeted Chinese workers in Pakistan where Beijing has been undertaking lucrative mining, energy and infrastructure development projects.
A BLA spokesperson on Wednesday threatened Beijing with “harsher” attacks until it stopped its “exploitation projects” in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province.
“Hundreds of highly trained male and female members of the Baloch Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade are ready to carry out deadly attacks in any part of Balochistan and Pakistan,” spokesman Jeeyand Baloch warned in a statement published in English.
Reacting to Tuesday’s incident, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson maintained the “ironclad friendship” between China and Pakistan was unbreakable, reported the Associated Press of Pakistan.
“Once again, we mourn the passing of the Chinese and Pakistani victims and extend our sincere sympathies to the victims and to the injured and the bereaved families,” Wang Wenbin said.
“We will work together with Pakistan to crack down on terrorist forces and make sure the culprits behind the attack pay a heavy price,” he added.
Pakistan’s new FM visits Chinese embassy, regrets loss of life in Karachi suicide bombing
https://arab.news/4fpxc
Pakistan’s new FM visits Chinese embassy, regrets loss of life in Karachi suicide bombing
- The foreign minister condemns ‘failed’ militant attempt to damage Pak-China relations
- A Baloch separatist group has warned China of ‘harsher’ attacks in the future
No casualties as blast derails Jaffar Express train in Pakistan’s south
- Passengers were stranded and railway staffers were clearing the track after blast, official says
- In March 2025, separatist militants hijacked the same train with hundreds of passengers aboard
QUETTA: A blast hit Jaffar Express and derailed four carriages of the passenger train in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province on Monday, officials said, with no casualties reported.
The blast occurred at the Abad railway station when the Peshawar-bound train was on its way to Sindh’s Sukkur city from Quetta, according to Pakistan Railways’ Quetta Division controller Muhammad Kashif.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb attack, but passenger trains have often been targeted by Baloch separatist outfits in the restive Balochistan province that borders Sindh.
“Four bogies of the train were derailed due to the intensity of the explosion,” Kashif told Arab News. “No casualty was reported in the latest attack on passenger train.”
Another railway employee, who was aboard the train and requested anonymity, said the train was heading toward Sukkur from Jacobabad when they heard the powerful explosion, which derailed power van among four bogies.
“A small piece of the railway track has been destroyed,” he said, adding that passengers were now standing outside the train and railway staffers were busy clearing the track.
In March last year, fighters belonging to the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) separatist group had stormed Jaffar Express with hundreds of passengers on board and took them hostage. The military had rescued them after an hours-long operation that left 33 militants, 23 soldiers, three railway staff and five passengers dead.
The passenger train, which runs between Balochistan’s provincial capital of Quetta and Peshawar in the country’s northwest, had been targeted in at least four bomb attacks last year since the March hijacking, according to an Arab News tally.
Pakistan Railways says it has beefed up security arrangements for passenger trains in the province and increased the number of paramilitary troops on Jaffar Express since the hijacking in March, but militants have continued to target them in the restive region.
Balochistan, Pakistan’s southwestern province that borders Iran and Afghanistan, is the site of a decades-long insurgency waged by Baloch separatist groups who often attack security forces and foreigners, and kidnap government officials.
The separatists accuse the central government of stealing the region’s resources to fund development elsewhere in the country. The Pakistani government denies the allegations and says it is working for the uplift of local communities in Balochistan.
