A suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden car into a bus carrying Chinese workers in Pakistan, killing at least five of them, along with their Pakistani driver, police said.
The bus plunged into a deep ravine off a mountainous highway after the bomber rammed his car into the bus and detonated his explosives, police said.
The March 26 attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province was the latest in a series targeting Chinese workers who are employed in major public infrastructure projects funded by the Chinese government. The projects have sparked resentment in some rural parts of the country, and militant groups have targeted foreign workers, seeking to undermine the construction projects.
The five Chinese who died were engineers at a key Chinese-funded hydropower project in Dasu, which is under construction by the China Gezhouba Group Company.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The Pakistani Taliban, aka Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), said it was not involved.
In a previous attack on Chinese workers at the dam project in Dasu, a bomb placed on a bus carrying Chinese workers in July 2021 killed 13 people, including nine Chinese citizens, and injured 21 others.
Pakistani officials said that bus attack was planned by Muhammad Tariq Rafiq, the high-profile commander of the TTP who was also responsible for a number of terrorist attacks in Pakistan. Islamabad said Rafiq was killed in July 2023.
The suicide bombing on March 26 comes just days after security forces killed at least seven militants as they attempted to storm the offices of Gwadar Port in southwestern Pakistan. The port is one of the main hubs for Beijing's $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that funds infrastructure projects across the country. The CPEC is under Beijing's wider Belt and Road initiative.
In addition to attacks carried out by the TTP, the Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist militant group, has also targeted Chinese citizens living in Pakistan.