A suicide bomber drove a car into a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a dam project in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing six people in the third major attack on Chinese interests in the South Asian country in a week. The first two attacks hit an air base and a strategic port in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, where China is investing billions of dollars in infrastructure projects.
A suicide attack on a convoy of Chinese engineers in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province killed five Chinese nationals and their Pakistani driver.
Officials said a bus carrying Chinese engineers working on the Dasu hydroelectric project was hit near the town of Besham on the Karakoram Highway, the only land link between Pakistan and China.
Sheraz Khan, station chief of the official Rescue 1122 emergency service, said the Pakistani driver of the bus was killed by the force of the blast and the bus skidded into a gorge on the banks of the Indus River. The bodies of the six victims were recovered after a fire in the wrecked bus was extinguished.
No terrorist group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
The incident was reminiscent of another attack in the same region. In July 2021, nine Chinese nationals working on the World Bank-funded Dasu project were killed in a suicide car bombing.
