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Fatal bomb attack hits Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan Suicide bomber attacks Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan
(about 1 hour later)
An explosion at the Chinese embassy in Kyrgyzstan has killed at least one person and wounded several others. A suicide bomber rammed his car into the Chinese embassy in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on Tuesday, reportedly injuring at least three employees and killing the driver.
Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prime minister said a suicide bomber rammed his car into the gate of the embassy compound in the capital Bishkek, detonating a bomb and injuring three embassy employees. “As a result of the explosion only the suicide bomber terrorist died. Security guards were injured,” Kyrgyzstan’s deputy prime minister, Jenish Razakov, told journalists, according to AFP.
Zhenish Razakov said the bomber had died and three embassy employees, all Kyrgyz nationals, were injured, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported. Razakov said the bomber had died and three embassy employees, all Kyrgyz nationals, were injured, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
The GKNB state security service said it was investigating the blast but provided no other details. A source at the Bishkek police told AFP that the Mitsubishi Delica car smashed a gate on the embassy before blowing up in the centre of the compound, close to the ambassador’s residence.
Kyrgyz news website 24.kg reported that the car appeared to have rammed the embassy’s gate before exploding. Another source with the Central Asian nation’s security service said an “explosive device” had been placed inside the vehicle.
Video of aftermath of #China embassy car bombing in Bishkek, #Kyrgyzstan: https://t.co/U50TvJqietVideo of aftermath of #China embassy car bombing in Bishkek, #Kyrgyzstan: https://t.co/U50TvJqiet
Chinese state news agency Xinhua, citing a Kyrgyz security official, said it was a “suicide car bombing attack”. A senior Kyrgyz security official told China’s official news agency, Xinhua, that the identities and nationalities of those wounded had not yet been determined.
This is a developing story, please check back for updates. The blame for Tuesday’s attack is likely to fall on militants from the Uighur ethnic minority who are waging what some describe as a low intensity insurgence against Chinese rule across the border in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
Raffaello Pantucci, the director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said Kyrgyzstan had a large Uighur community and that Uighur militants were the “obvious candidates” for the bombing. “It certainly would stack up in many ways,” he said.
Pantucci, a Xinjiang expert, said the attack appeared to have specifically targeted the Chinese embassy, which is in an isolated compound outside the centre of Bishkek. “The Chinese embassy isn’t exactly in the heart of town,” he pointed out.
China has been waging what it calls a “people’s war on terror” in the restive western region since 2014, when Uighur extremists launched attacks on civilians, including the bombing of a street market in Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital.
That war has seen dozens killed and many thousands detained on terrorism charges.
“[We must] make terrorists become like rats scurrying across a street, with everybody shouting ‘beat them!’,” President Xi Jinping declared last year.
However, critics accuse China of responding to the attacks with a campaign of fear, harassment and repression in Xinjiang. They argue that rather than simply targeting terror groups, authorities have instead launched a frontal assault on conservative Islam.
Critics of the crackdown believe it is breeding even greater resentment against Chinese rule that is likely to fuel further bloodshed.
Pantucci said there was no significant history of attacks on Chinese interests in Central Asia but there did seem to be a growing trend of such incidents around the globe.
As well as Tuesday’s attack, the academic pointed to the deadly 2015 bombing of Bangkok’s Erawan Shrine, which was a popular destination for Chinese tourists.
“If we take that [Thailand attack] and we take this – if it proves to be linked to Uighur militants – you are seeing a problem which is really starting now to export itself globally … that really lived in southern Xinjiang and then spread across the province, then spread across the country, and now is showing up globally.
“You are dealing with a problem that is metastasising negatively in a way that is really quite worrying.”