PESHAWAR: Five Chinese nationals working on a major dam construction site were killed along with their driver on Tuesday when a suicide bomber targeted their vehicle in northwest Pakistan, officials said. Their vehicle plunged into a deep ravine off the mountainous Karakoram Highway after the bomber rammed his car into them and detonated his explosives, police said. Beijing has poured billions of dollars into Pakistan in recent years, but Chinese-funded projects have sparked resentment and their citizens have frequently come under attack.

Images shared with AFP show smoke rising from the valley, near Besham city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. “Five Chinese and their local driver were killed in the attack,” Muhammad Ali Gandapur, a senior provincial police official, told AFP.

He said the vehicle was travelling from the Dasu hydroelectric dam site, under construction by the China Gezhouba Group Company, towards the capital Islamabad. Zahid Khan, a senior local police official, told AFP that four Chinese nationals and their driver were killed. “Upon reaching an unpopulated area in Besham, a suicide bomber crashed his vehicle into theirs. The vehicle caught fire and plunged down the ravine,” he said.

In 2021 a bus carrying engineers to the same construction site was hit by a bomb, killing 13 people including nine Chinese workers. Tuesday’s attack comes days after security forces killed at least seven militants as they attempted to storm the offices of Gwadar Port in southwest Pakistan, considered a cornerstone of Chinese investment.

‘Most trusted friend’

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi was pictured arriving at China’s embassy in Islamabad within hours of the bombing. “The enemy aimed its attack at the citizens of Pakistan’s most trusted friend country,” he said in a statement. “A robust response will be delivered to the perpetrators.”

Islamabad is Beijing’s closest regional ally, readily providing financial assistance to bail out its often-struggling neighbor. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has seen tens of billions of dollars funneled into massive transport, energy and infrastructure projects. But separatist groups say locals see little benefit from major Chinese projects, with most jobs going to outsiders. The security of Chinese workers has long been of concern to both countries.

“The Chinese workers were already scared and feared that another attack was coming,” said Azeem Khalid, a Chinese investment expert at COMSATS University Islamabad. “With every such incident, the speed of the project will be slower.” In 2019, gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Balochistan province overlooking the flagship Chinese-backed deep-water seaport in Gwadar that gives strategic access to the Arabian Sea - killing at least eight people. In June 2020, Baloch insurgents targeted the Pakistan Stock Exchange, which is partly owned by Chinese companies, in the commercial capital of Karachi. — AFP