BLA militants attack convoy of Chinese engineers in Pakistan

Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) militants have claimed responsibility for an attack on a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a project at the Beijing-funded Gwadar Port in the southwest of Pakistan yesterday.

The convoy was ambushed with bombs and gunfire at 9:17 a.m. local time on its way back to the port from the Gwadar airport, China’s embassy in Karachi said in a statement (in Chinese). A total of 23 Chinese personnel were being escorted by three bulletproof SUVs and a van, Chinese state-run nationalist tabloid Global Times reported, along with video of the attack that recorded sounds of gunfire echoing in the background.

Bullet holes from the attack in the window of the van belonging to the Chinese convoy. Image via Global Times.

“BLA Majeed Brigade today targeted a convoy of Chinese engineers in Gawadar,” the local separatist group said in a statement posted on social media, saying it killed several Chinese workers and Pakistani security forces escorting the convoy. The BLA is banned in Pakistan and often inflates its claims.

Pakistan’s armed forces said at least two militants were killed and three others were injured in an exchange of fire with security forces, who have cordoned off the entire area and launched a search operation. No injuries or casualties of Chinese citizens have been reported by official Chinese and Pakistani sources.

“China will continue to work with the Pakistani side, to jointly counter the threats of terrorism and earnestly protect the safety of Chinese personnel, institutions, and projects in Pakistan,” the Chinese embassy’s statement said.

Infographic by Alex Santafé for The China Project, with data from the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies

The incident adds to a string of recent attacks from various Baloch separatist groups on Chinese citizens and interests in the region. Gwadar, a key seaport town at the head of the Gulf of Oman that would fasttrack the export of oil and gas from landlocked Xinjiang, has been undergoing a slew of development projects in recent years. Most of them are being carried out with help from Chinese engineers and financed by Chinese entities under the estimated $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) global infrastructure project.

But despite the ongoing additions of a new seaport, a high-speed railway upgrade, and other developments in Gwadar, anti-Chinese sentiment has been brewing among locals, many of whom claim that they do not receive any benefits from the vast influx of new wealth.

In May 2022, Pakistani police arrested a woman working for the BLA who planned to blow herself up near a convoy of Chinese nationals along the CPEC. One month earlier, the BLA claimed responsibility for an attack against a shuttle bus used by Karachi’s Confucius Institute that killed three Chinese teachers and their local driver.

Islamabad has sought to reassure Beijing, its biggest source of military and economic support, over the uptick in terror activities. But beefed-up security measures for CPEC projects and Chinese nationals in Pakistan have done little to quell Beijing’s anxieties — with the Taliban in control of neighboring Afghanistan, Beijing has been concerned that instability will spill over into its other massive projects in the region.

“Any attempt to destroy China-Pakistan friendship or the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is doomed to fail,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wāng Wénbīn 汪文斌 told a press conference today.