Separatists attack Chinese consulate in Pakistan, killing 4

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Armed separatists stormed the Chinese Consulate in Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi on Friday, triggering an intense hour-long shootout during which two Pakistani civilians, two police officers and all three assailants were killed, Pakistani officials said.

The killed Pakistani civilians were a father and a son who had come to the consulate to pick up their visas to China, police said.

The brazen assault, claimed by a militant group from the southwestern province of Baluchistan, reflected the separatists' attempt to strike at the heart of Pakistan's close ties with major ally China, which has invested heavily into road and transportation projects in the country, including in Baluchistan.

All the Chinese diplomats and staff at the consulate were safe and were not harmed during the attack or the shootout, senior police official Ameer Ahmad Sheikh said. They were evacuated from the area shortly after and taken to a safe place.

Following the attack, China asked Pakistan to beef up security at the mission. In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said China would not waver in its latest big project in Pakistan -- the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor -- and expressed confidence Pakistan could ensure security.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan condemned the attack, describing it as part of a conspiracy against Pakistan and China's economic and strategic cooperation. Khan lauded the Karachi police and the paramilitary rangers, saying they showed exceptional courage in defending the consulate and the "nation salutes the martyrs."

He also ordered an investigation and vowed such incidents would never be able to undermine relations with China, which are "mightier than the Himalayas and deeper than the Arabian Sea."

The attackers stormed the consulate shortly after 9 a.m., during business hours. They first opened fire at consulate guards and hurled grenades, then managed to breach the main gate and enter the building, said Mohammad Ashfaq, a local police chief.

Pakistani security forces quickly surrounded the area. Local TV stations broadcast images showing smoke rising from the building, which also serves as the residence of Chinese diplomats and other staff.

Multiple blasts were heard soon afterward but Sheikh could not say what they were. The shootout lasted for about an hour.

"Because of a quick response of the guards and police, the terrorists could not" reach the diplomats, Sheikh said after the fighting ended. "We have completed the operation."

He added one of the attackers was wearing a suicide vest and authorities would try to identify the assailants through fingerprints. Dr Seemi Jamali, a spokeswoman at the Jinnah Hospital, said a consulate guard was also wounded in the attack and was being treated at the hospital.

Geng, the Chinese spokesman, said the attackers didn't manage to get into the consulate itself and the exchange of fire took place outside the building. The discrepancy with the Pakistani officials' reports could not be immediately reconciled.

Elsewhere in Pakistan on Friday, a powerful bomb at an open-air food market in the Orakzai region of the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, which borders Afghanistan, killed 35 people and wounded dozens of others, said police official Tahir Ali.

Most of the victims in the attack in the town of Klaya were minority Shiite Muslims. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing. Orakzai has been the scene of several militant attacks in recent years, mostly by Pakistani Sunni militants, who revile Shiites as apostates.

In its claim of responsibility for the Karachi attack, the Baluch Liberation Army said it was fighting "Chinese occupation" and released photos of the three attackers.

This was the second attack this year by Baluch separatists in Pakistan. Karachi, the capital of Sindh province, which borders Baluchistan, has a presence of several militant groups, including Baluch separatists.

In August, a suicide bomber rammed into a bus ferrying Chinese workers to the Saindak mining project in southwestern Baluchistan, wounding five workers. The project is controlled by the Chinese state-owned Metallurgical Corporation of China. And in May, gunmen opened fire on two Chinese nationals in Karachi, killing one and wounding the other.